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Rubin, K.H., Coplan, R. Chen, X., Bowker, J.C., McDonald, K. & Heverly-Fitt, S. (2015). Peer relationships in
childhood. In M. H. Bornstein & M.E. Lamb (Eds.), Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook. (7th edition).
Pp. 591-649. New York: Psychology Press.
Peer Relationships
Kenneth H. Rubin, Robert J. Coplan, Xinyin Chen, Julie C. Bowker, Kristina L. McDonald, and Sara
Heverly-Fitt
Kenneth H. Rubin,
Center for Children, Relationships, and Culture
Department of Human Development
University of Maryland
3304 Benjamin Building
College Park, MD 20742-1131
e-mail: krubin@umd.edu
phone: 301-405-0458
fax: 301-405-7735
http://www.rubin-lab.umd.edu/
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Introduction
An early view of the development of adaptive and maladaptive behaviors during childhood and
adolescence suggested that such outcomes stemmed largely from the quality of the child's
relationship with his or her parents and from the types of socialization practices that the parents
engaged in. This primary focus on the developmental significance of the parent-child relationship
and of parenting practices was proposed early by Freud (1933) in his theory of psychosexual
development, by Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) in their seminal research on the significance of
discipline variability and social learning, and by Bowlby (1958) in his influential writings on the long-
term developmental importance of the mother-infant attachment relationship.
Without denying the veracity of these claims, it is nevertheless the case that adjustment and
maladjustment in childhood and adolescence stems from a wide variety of sources including genetic
and biological underpinnings and social influences other than parents. For example, children and
adolescents spend enormous amounts of time, both in and out of home, relating to and interacting
with many other people of potential influence. These significant others include their siblings,
teachers or out-of-home caregivers, and peers. Children's peers are the focus of the present chapter.
To examine the significance of peers in children’s lives, this chapter is organized as follows.
We begin with a discussion of the theory that has brought the study of peers to its present status.
Next, we describe normative patterns of peer interaction from infancy through late childhood and
early adolescence. In the following section, we review the literature on children’s friendships; we
examine what it is that draws children together as friends and the qualitative dimensions of children’s
behavior displayed during interaction with friends. Next, we describe the functions of the peer group,
the processes involved in peer group formation, and peer group norms and organization. This
section leads to a discussion of the correlates, proximal determinants, and consequences of being
accepted or rejected by the peer group. The distal processes (e.g., family factors, cultural factors) by
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which children become accepted or rejected by their peers are described in another section. We next
introduce a new direction being undertaken by peer relationship researchers – the relations between
biology, social-cognitive neuroscience, and peer relations. Our chapter concludes with a discussion of
some of the directions that future research might productively follow.
The purpose of this chapter is to describe the nature and significance of peer relationships in
childhood and early adolescence. It is our intention to argue that such relationships represent
contexts within which a significant degree of adaptive development occurs, and that without the
experience of normal peer relationships, maladaptive development is likely to follow.
Theoretical Perspectives on Peer Relationships Research
The theoretical groundwork for modern research on children’s peer relationships can be traced back
over 80 years. Piaget (1932) suggested that children's relationships with peers could be clearly
distinguished from their relationships with adults. Adult-child relationships could be construed as
being asymmetrical and falling along a vertical plane of dominance and power assertion. Children
normally accept adults' rules, not necessarily because they understand them, but rather because
obedience is required. By contrast, children's relationships with peers were portrayed as being
balanced, egalitarian, and as falling along a more-or-less horizontal plane of power assertion and
dominance. Thus, it was in the peer context that children could experience opportunities to examine
conflicting ideas and explanations, to negotiate and discuss multiple perspectives, and to decide to
compromise with, or to reject, the notions held by peers. These experiences were believed to result
in adaptive developmental outcomes for children, such as the ability to understand others' thoughts,
emotions, and intentions.
Contemporary perspectives on the role of peer exchange for developmental growth can be
seen in the work of co-constructivist thinkers (e.g., Baker-Sennett, Matusov, & Rogoff, 2008). Some
researchers have examined whether the quality of the relationship between the peers who are
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interacting with each other may contribute to cognitive and social-cognitive growth and development
(Malti & Buchmann, 2010). For example, friends can challenge each other with relative impunity.
Given that friends are more sensitive to each other’s' needs, and more supportive of each other’s
thoughts and well-being than non-friends, it may be that children are more likely to talk openly and
challenge each other’s thoughts and deeds in the company of friends than non-friends. If this were
the case, one would expect exchanges between friends to be more promoting of cognitive and social-
cognitive growth than non-friend peer exchanges (e.g., McDonald, Malti, Killen, & Rubin, 2014).
Another early theoretical perspective on peer relationships stems from the writings of
Sullivan (1953). Like Piaget, Sullivan believed that the concepts of mutual respect, equality, and
reciprocity developed from peer relationships. Sullivan, however, emphasized the significance of
"special" relationships -- chumships and friendships -- for the emergence of these concepts. In the
early school years, whether friends or not, Sullivan thought children were basically insensitive to their
peers. During the juvenile years (late elementary school), however, children were thought to be able
to recognize and value each other's personal qualities; as a consequence, peers gained power as
personality-shaping agents. Sullivan's theory has proven influential in the contemporary study of the
protective role played by friendship in the lives of children who have poor relationships with parents
(e.g., Rubin, Dwyer, et al., 2004) or who are at risk because of their own personal characteristics (e.g.,
Bukowski, Laursen, & Hoza, 2010), and studies focused on the negative psychological consequences
of not having close dyadic relationships with friends (e.g., Erath, Flanagan, Bierman, & Tu, 2010).
Building on the turn-of-the-century notions of Cooley (1902), George Herbert Mead (1934)
offered a third influential theory in which he suggested that the ability to reflect on the self developed
gradually over the early years of life, primarily as a function of peer play and peer interaction. This
theoretical position has been highly influential in contemporary research concerning relations
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between peer rejection and victimization, and the organization of the self-system (e.g., Ladd, Troop-
Gordon & Ladd, 2003).
Learning and social learning theory is yet another approach that has guided research on
children's peer relationships. The basic tenet of the social learning approach to development is that
children learn about their social worlds, and how to behave within these contexts, through direct peer
tutelage and observation of peers "in action" (Bandura, 1977). From this perspective, peers are
viewed as behavior control and behavior change agents for each other. In this regard, children
punish or ignore non-normative social behavior and reward or reinforce positively those behaviors
viewed as culturally appropriate and competent. Thus, to the extent that children behave in a socially
appropriate manner, they develop positive relationships with their peers; to the extent that children
behave in a socially inappropriate manner, peer rejection may result.
Notable examples derive from studies demonstrating that: (1) prosocial behavior is typically
associated with peer acceptance and high friendship quality (e.g., Bowker, Fredstrom, et al., 2010); (2)
aggressive behavior typically predicts peer rejection (e.g., Vitaro, Pedersen, & Brendgen, 2007); (3)
children who are highly aggressive tend to be friends with others much like them and when the
groups within which they are members are defined, in large part, by aggressive norms, their
aggressive behavior tends to be reinforced (e.g., Dishion & Piehler, 2009); and (4) when children’s
gossip is reinforced by friends, it may be viewed as the sharing of intimate disclosure and actually
improve the quality of the friendship (Banny, Heilbron, Ames, & Prinstein, 2011).
Ethological theory has also provided a novel and substantial influence on the study of
children's peer interactions, relationships, and groups. From an ethological perspective, it is argued
that there is a relation between biology and the ability to initiate, maintain, or disassemble particular
relationships (Vaughn & Santos, 2009). It is a central tenet of ethological theory that social behavior
and organizational structure are limited by biological constraints, and that they serve an adaptive
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evolutionary function (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1976). A basic focus of contemporary human
ethological research has been the provision of detailed descriptions of the organization and structure
of social behaviors and groups (Santos, Vaughn, & Bost, 2008). Given the assumption that social
interactions, relationships, and groups are best understood when observed in natural settings,
ethological theory has had a major impact on the development of observational methods by which
children’s social lives in the peer group have been studied.
Finally, there is the Group Socialization Theory of Harris (2009). Harris has challenged the view
that parents primarily mold children’s personalities; rather, in her view, the peer group plays a more
significant role in personality and social development. Briefly, she proposed that, once children find
themselves outside the home, they take on the norms prevalent in the groups within which they
spend their time … and, for the most part, those groups comprise other children! Drawing from
social psychological perspectives on the significance of group norms (a motivation to “fit in”), in-
group biases and out-group hostilities, and social cognitive views of group processes, she argued that
children’s identities develop primarily from their experiences within peer groups. Although Harris’
view that parents and such dyadic relationships as friendship are relatively unimportant for individual
development has drawn many criticisms (e.g., Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, &
Bornstein, 2000), publication of her work could have met with unanimous applause on the parts of
those researchers who have attempted to demonstrate the significance of peer interactions,
relationships, and groups for normal and abnormal development. For decades, theorists, researchers,
and policy makers who have cited the primacy of parenting and the parent-child relationship have
challenged those who have attempted to establish the significance of children’s peer experiences.
With Harris’ counterchallenge, a gauntlet was thrown down – researchers must now begin to address
some central questions about the causal roles that genes, biology, family, and peers play in child and
adolescent adjustment and maladjustment.
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The Early Developmental Course of Peer Interactions and Relationships
The frequency and nature of children’s social exchanges with peers evolve at a remarkable rate within
the first few years of life. In this section we provide an overview of the developmental course of peer
interaction, with a particular focus on the period from infancy to early childhood.
Infancy and the Toddler Period
Not surprisingly, children become increasingly interactive and competent at initiating and maintaining
social exchanges as they grow older. What might be surprising is how very young children are when
they can be first observed to engage in socially directed behaviors toward peers (see Brownell &
Kopp, 2007 for relevant reviews).
Given obvious motoric, cognitive, and verbal limitations, one might not expect much peer
interaction when observing young infants. Indeed, Buhler (1935), in one of the first studies of peer
interaction in infancy, suggested that prior to 6 months, babies were fairly oblivious to each other's
presence. However, there is now reason to believe that the social awareness of very young infants has
been grossly underestimated. For example, Eckerman (1979) reported that infants as young as 2
months of age are aroused by the presence of peers and engage in mutual gaze. Other signs of
socially oriented interest during the first half-year of life include smiling, vocalizing, and reaching
toward peers (Fogel, 1979). By 6- to 9 months, infants direct looks, vocalizations, and smiles at one
another - and often return such gestures in kind (Hay, Pederson, & Nash, 1982).
These socially oriented behaviors increase steadily with age over the first year of life.
Moreover, the tendency to respond to social overtures increases dramatically during the latter quarter
of the first year (Jacobson, 1981). Responses are often in the form of imitative acts, often focused on
objects, which help to facilitate joint engagement (Adamson, Bakeman, & Decker, 2004). By the
toddler period, children are more likely to socially imitate peers than adults (Ryalls, Gull, & Ryalls,
2000). Notwithstanding the apparent sociability of the infant, it seems fairly clear that social
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interaction with peers occurs relatively rarely and that, when interactive bouts do occur, they are not
for lengthy periods of time.
During the second year, toddlers take giant steps in advancing their social repertoires
(Brownell & Kopp, 2007). For example, by 18 months of age, toddlers discriminate between more
optimal (e.g., offering a toy) and less effective strategies (e.g., touching a peer’s toy) for eliciting a
social response (Williams, Ontai, and Mastergeorge (2009). Moreover, Brownell (1990) reported that
children as young as 2 years of age adjust the content and complexity of their social behaviors to the
age of their partners.
With the emergence of locomotion and the ability to speak, social interchanges become
increasingly complex. From the somewhat unpredictable social response sequences observed between
infants, interactive exchanges and sequences in the toddler period can be characterized as more
predictable, complex, coordinated, and lengthy. These interactions typically take the form of simple
"games", which are marked by reciprocal imitative acts and the emergence of turn-taking. Hay and
Cook (2007) argued that these prototypical social games are characterized by a “playful, nonliteral
quality” (p. 103) that distinguishes them from more “literal” interaction (e.g., interpersonal conflict).
By 24 months of age toddlers also begin to demonstrate cooperative problem-solving during
experimental tasks (e.g., Brownell, Ramani, & Zerwas, 2006).
The Preschool Years
A critical, feature of the preschool years is children’s increased frequency in social participation with
peers. In 1932, Parten described six sequential social participation categories: unoccupied behavior,
solitary play, onlooker behavior (the child observes others but does not participate in the activity),
parallel play (plays beside but not with other children), associative play (plays and shares with others),
and cooperative play (social play in which there is a defined division of labor). Parten concluded that
there is a strict developmental sequence of social participation, whereby toddlers progress from
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solitary play to parallel play by age 3 years, and then to social play by age 5 years. Parten’s typology of
social participation has been enormously influential in the contemporary study of children’s social
play, but appears to be oversimplified (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983). For example, although
young children become more social with age, nonsocial play does not disappear as children get older
(e.g., Rubin, Watson, & Jambor, 1978). As well, as opposed to a developmental stage, parallel play
appears to function more as a “transitional bridge” from solitary to group activities (e.g., Robinson,
Anderson, Porter, Hart, and Wouden-Miller (2003).
However, equally important is what children are doing during increasingly common social
exchanges. For example, during the preschool years, children begin to direct more speech at peers
and interact with a wider range of peers (Hay, Caplan, & Nash, 2009). As well, whereas peer
interactions in younger children are primarily dyadic, from about 4 years on children become more
likely to play in larger groups (Benenson, Apostoleris, & Parnass, 1997).
Another major social interactive advance in the third year of life is the ability for children to
share symbolic meanings through social pretense (Howe, Petrakos, Rinaldi, & LeFebvre, 2005). Children
begin to spontaneously take on complementary roles, none of which "matches" their real-world
situations, and to agree on the adoption of these imaginary roles within a rule-governed context.
These remarkable accomplishments can be seen in the peer play of many 24- to 48-month-olds. The
ability to share meaning during pretense has been referred to as "intersubjectivity" (Trevarthen,
1979). Increased intersubjectivity appears to underlie the development of longer, more coordinated,
and increasing complex episodes of pretend play with peers among preschoolers. Sociodramatic play
(i.e., shared pretense in a group) becomes increasingly common from 3 to 6 years of age and is widely
viewed as an indicator of social competence, self-regulation, and advanced cognitive and linguistic
skills (Smith, 2005).
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Yet another critical advance in the preschool years involves the emergence of cooperative
problem-solving. Brownell, Ramani, and Zerwas (2006) reported age-related changes in children’s
cooperation over the first three years of life. Whereas coordinated activities between younger toddlers
were sporadic and more likely to be coincidental in nature, during the second year, children were
considerably more skilled at cooperating towards a common goal. Moreover, not only does the
frequency of peer interaction continue to increase during the third year of life (Legendre &
Muchenbach, 2011) but cooperative exchanges also become increasingly common during these peer
exchanges (Schulz & Bonawitz, 2007). Indeed, the social play context appears to be particularly
helpful in promoting cooperation – and learning - among young children (e.g., Ramani, 2012).
Helping and sharing behaviors with peers are also observed to increase from the early toddler
to the early preschool years (e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). This is likely a result of
increasing social-cognitive and affective perspective-taking abilities. A more sophisticated
understanding of how others think and feel promotes the development of empathy, which may in
turn lead to an increase in helping, sharing, and caring behaviors (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello,
2009). These advances underscore yet another crucial advance during the preschool years, namely the
emergence of theory of mind (ToM), which refers to the ability to recognize the existence of mental
states in others and to predict/explain social behavior on the basis of these mental states. There is
evidence to suggest that the relation between ToM and peer experiences is bidirectional and
transactional over time. Caputi, Lecce, Pagnin, and Banerjee (2012) recently reported a longitudinal
mediated pathway from age 5 to 7 years, with early ToM leading to improvements in prosocial
behaviors, which in turn contributed towards more positive peer experiences (i.e., lower peer
rejection, higher peer acceptance).
Finally, throughout the preschool years, children also demonstrate age-related increases in
social-communicative competence (Goldstein, Kaczmarek, & English, 2002). For example, from
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toddlerhood to preschool-age, children develop the ability to use gestures to represent absent objects
and to explicitly coordinate roles in pretend play (Sawyer, 1997). Moreover, older preschool age
children direct more speech to their peers than do their younger counterparts and their
communication with peers is more likely to include indirect (i.e., declaratives, interrogatives, inferred
requests) than direct (imperatives) requests (Garvey, 1984). Genyue and Lee (2007) described the
emergence of flattery behavior between the ages of 3-6 years, with older preschoolers appropriately
moderating their display of such behavior in keeping with the familiarity and presence/absence of the
intended target.
Notwithstanding these increases in prosocial and sociable behaviors, preschoolers’
interactions with peers also evolve in terms of more negative social interchanges. For example,
although aggression (particularly instrumental aggression such as fights over toys and possessions;
NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2001) tends to decline overall from toddlerhood to the
preschool years, an increasing proportion of aggression becomes hostile in intent. This may be due to
preschoolers’ increased understanding of social motives and peer intentions (e.g., Lee & Cameron,
2000), which may also contribute towards an accompanying increase in social-cognitively “advanced”
forms of social and relational aggression (Crick, Murray-Close, Marks, & Mohajeri-Nelson, 2009) which
are discussed in more detail in a later section of this chapter.
Development beyond the Preschool Period
In middle-childhood, children’s interactions with peers become increasingly complex and
multifaceted in nature. In many respects, these developments can be attributed to continued advances
in the abilities to understand and appreciate others' thoughts, intentions, and emotions (e.g., Izard,
2009). Thus, social communicative competence continues to improve with age, and children become
more adept at establishing shared meanings with their peers (Goldstein et al., 2002). Continued
improvement in social skills allows for children to more competently achieve their social goals and
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resolve interpersonal dilemmas (Rubin & Rose-Krasnor, 1992). Furthermore, with age children
become better able to engage in rule governed competitive games (Rubin et al., 1983) and there
continue to be age-related increases in altruistic behavior from early to middle and late childhood
(Eisenberg et al., 2006). Indeed, by late childhood, social interaction has very much become “the
norm”, with children observed to be engaged in dyadic or larger group peer activities over 90% of the
time on average in the schoolyard playground (Coplan, Rose-Krasnor, & Ooi, in press).
In summary, we have described the developmental progression of young children’s interactive
skills with peers. These skills aid children to initiate and maintain dyadic relationships with non-
familial others. These special dyadic relationships have been posited to serve many adaptive functions
throughout the childhood and adolescent years; indeed, throughout life! We turn now to a discussion
of children’s friendships.
Children and Their Friends
Children’s close friendships with peers are developmentally significant relationship experiences that
differ from their relationships with adults (e.g., their parents) in form, function, and impact.
Throughout childhood and into adolescence, however, many aspects of friendship experiences, such
as the level of intimacy and the ways in which youth think about friendship, undergo significant
developmental change. In the following sections we discuss the significance and functions of
friendship; the development of the understanding of friendship; the prevalence and stability of
friendship; friendship formation processes; similarities between friends; children’s interactions with
friends versus non-friends; gender related issues; children without friends; relations between
friendship and adjustment; and issues pertaining to the assessment of friendship.
Functions of Friendship
What is a friendship? Friendships have been defined in various ways in different disciplines and
areas of study, but in the peer relationship field, a friendship most often refers to a close, voluntary
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relationship between two same-age peers that is characterized by mutual affection or liking (Rubin,
Fredstrom, & Bowker, 2008). This definition distinguishes friendship from such group level constructs
as peer acceptance, which refers to the experience of being well-liked or accepted by one's peer
group. A few defining features of friendship include reciprocity and a feeling of perceived equality
between individuals. In its simplest definition, reciprocity refers to the return of like behavior and
affection between partners and is an essential component of any definition of friendship. Same-age
peers often have similar social skills and competencies, which in turn, help to foster feelings of
equality between children and their friends; such feelings of equality likely contrast sharply with how
children feel in their relationships with their parents and other adults in their lives, such as teachers,
coaches, and other caregivers.
Friendships in childhood serve several important functions. For example, friendships
provide emotional security and support, self-esteem enhancement, and positive self-evaluation; they
also provide affection and opportunities for intimate disclosure and offer consensual validation of
interests, hopes, and fears. Friends can also offer instrumental and informational assistance; promote
the growth of interpersonal sensitivity; and offer prototypes for later romantic and parental
relationships (Bagwell & Schmidt, 2011). Perhaps the most important function of friendship is to
offer children an extra-familial base of security from which they may explore the effects of their
behaviors on themselves, their peers, and their environments.
From a developmental perspective, Parker and Gottman (1989) argued that friendship serves
different functions for children at different points in their development. For the young child,
friendship serves to maximize excitement and amusement levels in play, and helps to organize
behavior in the face of arousal. In middle childhood, friendships aid in acquiring knowledge about
behavioral norms and help children learn the skills necessary for successful self-presentation and
impression management. These skills become crucial in middle childhood when anxiety about peer
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relationships develops. Finally, in adolescence, friendships serve to assist individuals in their quest for
self-exploration and identity formation and to help them integrate logic and emotions.
Children's Conceptions of Friendship
One of the most productive areas of developmental inquiry has been the study of how children think
about and define friendship. In general, friendship conceptions have been assessed by asking children
such questions as "What is a best friend?" or "What do you expect from a best friend?" (Fredstrom et
al., 2012) In response to these questions and others, children of all ages describe best-friendships as
relationships that are characterized by reciprocity or mutual “give-and-take” (Hartup & Stevens,
1997). Beyond this general agreement about the importance of reciprocity, however, children’s
conceptions of friendship change with age. For instance, during early and middle childhood (7 to 8
years), children describe friends as companions who live nearby, have nice toys, and share the child's
expectations about play activities. During late childhood (10 to 11 years) shared values and rules
become more important, and friends are expected to stick up for, and be loyal to, each other. Finally,
by early adolescence (11 to 13 years), friends are seen as sharing similar interests, making active
attempts to understand each other, and willing to engage in intimate self-disclosure (Bigelow &
LaGaipa, 1980). Taken together, it appears that children’s understanding of friendship become
increasingly sophisticated and their expectations become increasingly linked to intimacy with age.
Why do such developmental changes occur? Selman and Schultz (1990) argued that the key
to developmental change in children's friendship conceptions is perspective taking ability (or ToM).
Young children do not yet realize that other people feel or think about things differently from
themselves. As children grow older however, they gradually take on the viewpoints of others,
moving from egocentrism to a mutual perspective. As a final step, children/adolescents are able to
mentally stand outside of the social system comprising their social interactions and relationships and
to view themselves and their relationships with others from the perspective of someone who is not
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involved in the relationship, that is, from an “objective third person perspective”. This shift in how
children "see" themselves and others is thought to be manifested in their understanding of
relationships, and especially friendships.
Other researchers have argued that children's friendship expectations develop in conjunction
with the children's understanding of reciprocity (e.g., Youniss, 1980). Young children who believe
that their own contributions to their friendships are the most important are more likely to understand
friendship in terms of momentary interactions and how they themselves are affected. By
adolescence, friendship is perceived as an ongoing and mutual relationship, and friends are people on
whom children can count for continuing understanding and intimate social support. In contrast,
Berndt (1981) argued that friendship conceptions represent the cumulative assimilation of basically
unrelated themes or dimensions, such as commonalities in play interests and self-disclosure.
According to Berndt, children do not abandon initial notions about play and mutual association when
they eventually recognize the importance of intimacy but instead extend their earlier notions to
include ideas about intimacy and loyalty.
Although the jury is still out in terms of what may be the underlying mechanisms by which
the understanding of friendships develops, speculation is plausible. Essentially, children's
conceptions about friendship reflect their own transitions from the world of the concrete to the
world of the abstract. What children may require and desire in a friendship develops as a function of
their growing understanding of their social worlds, in conjunction with their own expanding social
needs. Beginning in early childhood, and becoming more so as time goes on, the social world is
increasingly cognitively differentiated. Eventually, children begin to realize that a friendship can serve
potentially as both a resource and a context that differs from the conditions that exist with non-
friends. Of course, the growing recognition of the importance of intimacy in friendships occurs
around the same time that children’s actual friendships become increasingly intimate (Bukowski,
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Motzoi, & Meyer, 2009), suggesting that children’s developing friendship conceptions are linked to
some degree, and perhaps in a bidirectional manner, with their actual friendship experiences.
Finally, it is important to note that recent research has moved beyond studying normative,
developmental changes in friendship cognitions to investigating the significance of individual
differences in the ways in which children think about their friendships. Such research is still in its
infancy, but findings from several studies suggest that heterogeneity in children’s friendship
conceptions may begin to explain individual differences in friendship adjustment. For instance,
Fredstrom and colleagues (2012) found that anxiously-withdrawn children had less mature
perspectives on the significance of friendship closeness and friendship intimacy issues than did typical
children; the researchers suggested that these friendship conceptions may begin to explain why the
friendships of anxiously-withdrawn youth tend to be relatively lacking in positive friendship features,
such as intimate exchange (Rubin, Wojslawowicz, et al., 2006). Schneider and Tessier (2007) found
that anxiously-withdrawn young adolescents placed strong emphasis on their own needs and how
friendships can be a source of help when describing the functions of friendship. Given the
importance of reciprocity in children’s friendships described previously, these findings might offer
some explanation as to why the friends of anxiously-withdrawn youth rate their friendships as less fun
and helpful than do the friends of non-anxiously withdrawn youth (Rubin, Wojslawowicz et al.,
2006). Additional research is needed, however, that specifically evaluates these mediational
hypotheses and the significance of individual differences in friendship conceptions to children’s social
adjustment.
The Prevalence and Stability of Friendship
Children’s cognitions about friendships likely begin to develop, in part, from experiences with peers
and friends. At most periods of development, including early childhood and older adulthood, most
individuals have at least one mutual friend with whom they spend time (Hartup & Stevens, 1999). In
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daycare and preschool settings, parents and teachers are often asked whether a child has a friend;
observations are then made to confirm that the child does spends time with his or her reported friend
and that mutual affection between the two can be observed. But, beginning in the elementary school
years, children’s friendships are identified by way of friendship nominations. For example, children
may be asked to nominate their two “best” and three “good” same-gender friends in their class, grade
and school (e.g., Rubin, Wojslawowicz, et al., 2006). The mutuality of nominations is then evaluated;
thus, a child who receives a reciprocal “best” or “good” friendship nomination is considered to have
a mutual best or good friend. Several studies have shown that approximately 70-80% of children
have at least one mutual good friend (or any friend, when differences between good and best friends
are not made), and approximately 50-60% of children have at least one mutual best friend (e.g.,
Wojslawowicz Bowker, Rubin, Burgess, Booth-LaForce, & Rose-Krasnor, 2006), although prevalence
varies across studies due to variability in the measurement of friendship (e.g., when the number of
friendship nominations permitted differs; Berndt & McCandless, 2009).
Identifying a child’s friends is not as easy a task as one may surmise. Simply asking a child to
name her or his best friend(s) may lead to the production of a socially desirable response or the
unilateral choice of a partner who does not reciprocate the friendship nomination. In fact, a
consistent body of literature has indicated that the large majority of children and young adolescents
have at least one unilateral friendship when friendships are assessed by friendship nominations (e.g.,
100 %, George & Hartmann, 1996). Furthermore, the child may misinterpret the “meaning” of a
friend, and may provide an over-inclusive set of responses (e.g., by naming “chums”’ or
“acquaintances” rather than a “best friend”). Definitions of friendship are rarely provided for
children, which could be a particular concern in research conducted in non-Western societies in
which the meaning of friendship may differ from that used in Western societies. Historically, most
peer relationships researchers have limited friendship nominations to same-gender friends “in your
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class” or “in your grade.” But, growing evidence indicates that a sizable number of children and
adolescents have friends in other grades in their school (Bowker & Spencer, 2010), from outside-
school contexts (neighborhood, different school, sports team, out of town, online, and so forth; e.g.,
Mesch & Talmud, 2007) and who are of the other-gender; these friendships can strongly and uniquely
influence adjustment (e.g., Bowker & Spencer, 2010; Chan & Poulin, 2007). As a result, there has
been a shift towards relaxing friendship nomination restrictions in studies of child and adolescent
friendships.
Once mutual friendships are formed, childhood friendships show remarkable stability.
During the preschool years, two-thirds of children who identify one another as friends do so again 4
to 6 months later (Gershman & Hayes, 1983). Berndt and Hoyle (1985) found an increase in the
stability of mutual friendships from age 5 years (50%) to age 10 years (75%), but not from age 10
years to age 14 years. Indeed, it has been consistently found that only half of all young adolescent
friendships are stable across one academic school year (e.g., Bowker, 2004; Wojslawowicz Bowker et
al., 2006). This lack of increased stability during early adolescence can be accounted for by two
factors. To begin with, friendships tend to become more exclusive with age—as such, children may
allow some friendships to dissolve, especially those which are not satisfying (Branje, Frijns,
Finkenauer, Engels, & Meeus, 2007). As well, as children approach puberty, rapid changes in
interests, and varying rates of development may result in a period of change in friendships choices
(Bowker, 2004). However, stability in friendships appears to re-emerge as individuals move through
the high school years (Poulin & Chan, 2010). There is also evidence suggesting that boys are more
likely than girls to have stable same-gender (e.g., Benenson & Christakos, 2003) and other-gender
friendships (Chan & Poulin, 2007). Multi-context friendships (friendships that comprise individuals
who interact both inside and outside of school) also appear to be more stable than single-context
friendships (Chan & Poulin, 2007).
19
Similarities between Friends
What are some of the factors that influence the formation of children’s friendships? One of the most
consistent findings is that similarity in age and gender pull children together into friendships (e.g.,
Mehta & Strough, 2009). In addition, friends tend to be of the same ethnic and/or racial
backgrounds (e.g., McDonald, Dashiell-Aje, Oh, Bowker, Rubin, & Menzer, 2013). Thus, from an
early age, children are attracted to and choose friends who are like themselves in observable
characteristics. Moving beyond gender, age, and ethnicity, it is also the case that children are
attracted to peers whose behavioral tendencies are similar to their own. Indeed, greater behavioral
similarities exist between friends than non-friends, and children share friendships with other children
who resemble themselves in terms of prosocial and delinquent/antisocial behaviors (e.g., Hafen,
Laursen, Burk, Kerr, & Stattin, 2011), shyness and internalized distress (e.g., Rubin, Wojslawowicz,
Rose-Krasnor, Booth-LaForce, & Burgess, 2006), popularity and acceptance (e.g., Logis, Rodkin,
Gest, & Ahn, 2013), peer group difficulties (e.g., victimization; Bowker et al., 2010), academic
achievement and motivation (Altermatt & Pomerantz, 2003), and hobbies or interests (e.g., Selfhout,
Branje, ter Bogt, & Meeus, 2009).
In addition to similarity in behavior and peer group functioning, friends are more similar in
their targets for aggression, their social information processing skills, and their weight and eating
habits than non-friends (e.g., Card & Hodges, 2006; de la Haye, Robins, Mohr, & Wilson, 2013;
Spencer, Bowker, Rubin, Booth-LaForce, & Laursen, 2013). The importance of similarity for
friendship formation has been highlighted in recent years by numerous studies revealing evidence of
significant similarities prior to the formation of many children’s friendship (e.g., de la Haye et al.,
2013).
Similarity has been associated not only with friendship formation, but also friendship
maintenance and quality. For instance, by adolescence, stable friendship pairs, in contrast to those
20
members of friendships that dissolve, are more likely to be similar to each other in their attitudes about
school and academic aspirations; aggression; the use of drugs and alcohol; and that which is
considered to be normal teen behavior (e.g., Ellis & Zarbatany, 2007; Hafen et al., 2011). There is
also recent evidence that the extent to which children and their friends are similar in aggression-
related social information processing may explain some variability in the quality of their friendships
(Spencer et al., 2013).
Behaviors between Friends
Not only are friends more similar than non-friends, but they also interact with each other in unique
ways. Relative to the social interactions between non-friends, children of all ages engage in more talk,
task orientation, cooperation, positive affect, and effective conflict management when interacting
with their friends (e.g., Simpkins & Parke, 2002). In this regard, friendship is not only a social and
positive relational context, but it also provides for the expression and regulation of affect (Parker &
Gottman, 1989).
There are, however, several notable developmental changes that occur in the ways that
children interact with their friends. For instance, children as young as 3½ years have been observed
to direct more social overtures, engage in more social interaction, and play in more complex ways
with friends than non-friends (see Howes, 2009 for a review). Preschool-aged friends tend to be
more cooperative with each other during play (Charlesworth & LaFreniere, 1983), and 4th and 5th
grade friends demonstrate greater play sophistication (e.g., positive fantasy play, negotiation) when
interacting with their friends than non-friends (Simpkins & Parke, 2002). By adolescence,
friend/non-friend behavioral differences are even stronger than in middle childhood or the early
preschool years. Altruistic acts, particularly generosity, cooperation, and helpfulness between friends,
increase with age and continue well into adolescence (e.g., Windle, 1994). Thus, it appears that, as
21
children’s friendships become more exclusive and intimate, behavioral exchanges between friends
become increasingly unique and different from those between non-friends.
Research involving conflict between friends and non-friends is somewhat contradictory.
Friends differ from non-friends not only by engaging in more friendly interactions, but also by
demonstrating more quarreling, active hostility (assaults and threats) and reactive hostility (refusals
and resistance) between pairs. For example, Hartup and colleagues (e.g., Hartup, Laursen, Stewart, &
Eastenson, 1998) observed that nursery school children engaged in more conflicts overall with their
friends than with neutral associates. Simpkins and Parke (2002) also reported greater levels of
negative affect and guilty coercion within dyads of friends than non-friends. Most likely, these
findings can be attributed to the fact that friends spend more time actually interacting with each other
than do non-friends.
There are important differences, however, in the ways in which friends and non-friends resolve
conflicts that arise, and in what the outcomes of those conflicts are likely to be. For example, friends,
as compared with non-friends, make more use of negotiation and disengagement, relative to standing
firm, in their resolution of conflicts. Children and adolescents also often utilize problem solving to
resolve conflicts with their friends (e.g., de Wied, Branje, & Meeus, 2007). In terms of conflict
outcomes, friends are more likely to reach equitable resolutions and agreements. Thus, although the
amount of conflict is greater between friends than non-friends, friends resolve conflicts in ways that
help ensure that their relationships persist beyond the conflict and continue into the future (Laursen,
Hartup, & Keplas, 1996).
In summary, children appear to behave differently in the company of friends than non-
friends. When interacting with friends, children engage in more prosocial behaviors as well as more
conflicts than when with non-friends. These conflicts are more likely to be resolved through
negotiation, and the outcomes are usually equitable and involve mutual agreement. The differences
22
described suggest that children view friendship as a unique context, separate and qualitatively
different from their experiences with non-friends.
Gender Related Issues
There appear to be some similarities in the ways that boys and girls think about friendship; for
example, both boys and girls emphasize that they depend on friends for company, approval, and
support. However, gender differences emerge when boys and girls are asked the question “What do
you expect from a good friend?” Girls tend to respond by referring to that which they may receive
from a good friend; boys emphasize reciprocity, or provisions that they expect to receive from, as well
as give to, a friend (Craft, 1994). Differences also are revealed when children are asked to describe
their same-gender peers. Girls often describe their same-gender peers as being nice. In contrast,
boys are more likely to describe their male classmates in terms of their interests, fighting, artistic, and
athletic abilities, goofiness, and academic performance (Benenson, 1990). Other studies have
indicated that although boys and girls do not differ in the frequency with which they engage in dyadic
peer interactions, the duration of girls’ dyadic interactions are longer than those of boys (Benenson et
al., 1997). In addition, it appears that boys tend to play together in larger peer groups than do boys
(e.g., Ladd, 1983). Taken together, these findings provide some support for the proposition that boys
are more concerned with status within the peer group and more oriented towards the larger peer
group, whereas girls are more concerned with and oriented towards friendship and close affiliations.
Studies of children’s friendships also reveal gender differences in the quality of boys’ and girls’
friendships. Girls report more intimate exchange, conflict resolution, validation and caring, and help
and guidance within their friendships than do boys (e.g., Rubin, Dwyer, Booth, Kim, Burgess, &
Rose-Krasnor, 2004). These findings might be explained by girls’ greater orientation toward dyadic
relationships. Girls’ may be more emotionally invested in their friendships, which in turn, may help to
foster intimacy and feelings of closeness. Gender differences are not typically found, however, in
23
relationship satisfaction (e.g., Rose & Rudolph, 2006), suggesting that the aforementioned positive
features of friendship may carry different “meaning” for boys and girls (Rose, Swenson, & Robert,
2009). And, there is growing evidence that girls’ friendships can be psychologically stressful
relationship experiences. For instance, girls report greater distress when imagining the termination of
their friendships (Benenson & Christakos, 2003) and more jealousy about their friends’ relationships
with others than do boys (Parker, Low, Walker, & Gamm, 2005). And, girls report more co-
rumination, or intimate self-disclosure done in a “ruminative” fashion (e.g., negative dwelling on
emotionally charged and intimate everyday occurrences and feelings) within their friendships than do
boys, which in turn, is concurrently and predictively associated with internalizing problems (Rose,
Carlson, & Waller, 2007).
Children without Friends
Some children may be unsuccessful in their attempts to make friends. Indeed, researchers have found
that approximately 15 to 20% of children and young adolescents are friendless, or without any mutual
friends (Parker & Seal, 1996). Importantly, a similar percentage of youth have been found to be
consistently or chronically friendless (Wojslawowicz Bowker et al., 2006). Friendless children may lack
social skills or may demonstrate behaviors that their peers judge to be unattractive (Parker & Seal,
1996); they may also direct friendship bids towards peers who are unlikely to reciprocate (e.g.,
dissimilarly behaved peers; Bowker et al., 2010). Regardless of the reasons for friendlessness,
however, children without mutual friends report being lonelier than children with mutual friendships
(e.g., Parker & Seal, 1996). Moreover, Bagwell, Newcomb, and Bukowski (1998) found that being
without a mutual friend during the 5th grade was a negative predictor of feelings of general self-worth
during adulthood. Children and adolescents who lose friendships and are not able to replace them,
and thus are chronically friendless over time, appear to be the most at risk for negative adjustment
outcomes. Indeed, chronic friendlessness predicts increases in internalizing difficulties and peer
24
victimization during childhood and early adolescence (Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003; Wojslawowicz
Bowker et al., 2006).
It should be noted that children who are rejected and victimized by their peers are not
necessarily friendless (e.g., Erath, Flanagan, & Bierman, 2008). Relatedly, not all highly- and average-
accepted children have mutual friendships. This leads to a number of interesting questions regarding
the possible effects of having a close friendship. Laursen, Bukowski, Aunola, and Nurmi (2007)
found, for example, that initial social isolation predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing
problems and initial internalizing and externalizing problems predicted increases in isolation, but only
for those children who did not have a mutual friendship.
Friendship and Adjustment
Considerable evidence has accumulated that having a friend can promote or support positive
adjustment, particularly for youth who are at-risk due to their individual characteristics or
experiencing stressful times of transition and peer difficulty (see Bukowski et al., 2009 for a review).
For example, as children make the transition into elementary school, those who enter school with a
mutual friend report higher levels of school satisfaction and academic interest than those children
who begin the school years without a friend. The associations between friendship and adjustment,
however, are more complex when the stability and quality of the friendship is considered, along with
the characteristics of the best friend. In one study, Berndt, Hawkins, and Jiao (1999) found that
ratings of sociability and leadership increased across the transition from elementary to middle school
but only for those children who had high-quality, stable friendships. Behavior problems were found
to increase from sixth to seventh grade only for those children who had stable friendships with
children who had behavior problems themselves. Furthermore, having a high-quality, positive
friendship has been linked to positive psychological well-being (Bukowski et al., 2009).
25
But, results from a few studies suggest that there may also be a “dark” side to certain types of
“high-quality” friendships. For instance, Rose and colleagues (2007) found that co-rumination is
associated with both positive friendship quality and such emotional difficulties as anxiety and
depression. Also, several researchers have shown that having other-sex friendships can place
adolescents at risk for substance use; this seems especially true for girls, perhaps because girls tend to
befriend older other-sex peers with histories of delinquency (e.g., Mrug, Borch, & Cillessen, 2011).
Taken together, it appears critical to consider more than one friendship “factor” in studies of
friendship and adjustment.
Friendship and Shy/Withdrawn Children. Children who are shy and anxious might be expected to
have difficulties forming and maintaining friendships. After all, such children tend to “move away”
from their peers, which may preclude opportunities to establish friendships to begin with. The social
skills deficits associated with social wariness may also prove to inhibit the formation and maintenance
of friendship over time. However, there have been no reported differences in the proportions of
friendship prevalence and friendship stability for shy/withdrawn children relative to non-shy/non-
withdrawn children. For example, the prevalence of best friendships among young socially withdrawn
children is not significantly different from that among non-withdrawn children (Ladd & Burgess,
2001), and approximately 60% of withdrawn 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds have reciprocated friendships, a
percentage that is nearly identical to that of non-withdrawn age-mates (e.g., Rubin, Wojslawowicz et
al., 2006). Rubin and colleagues (2006) also found that withdrawn children were as likely as non-
withdrawn children to have a stable best friendship during late childhood and early adolescence.
Thus, it appears that social withdrawal and shyness are individual characteristics that do not influence
the formation, prevalence, and maintenance of friendship in childhood.
Beyond prevalence and stability, however, there is some evidence that the friendship
experiences of many shy/withdrawn children may be less than positive. For example, withdrawn
26
children tend to form friendships with similarly withdrawn and victimized peers, and their friendships
are relatively poor in relationship quality (Rubin, Wojslawowicz, et al., 2006; Schneider, 1999). These
findings suggest a “misery loves company” scenario for withdrawn children and their best friends.
One may conjure up images of shy and victimized friends coping poorly in the world of peers …
images reflected in recent newspaper and television accounts of peer victimization and its untimely
consequences. In support of this notion, having a withdrawn friend has been associated with
increased social withdrawal across the middle school transition (Oh et al., 2008). Yet, any mutual best
friendship, even if it is a “miserable” one, but especially if it is stable (Oh et al., 2008), may help
withdrawn children navigate difficult times of transition and school change.
It should be noted that most of the extant literature on social withdrawal and friendship has
focused exclusively on shy or anxiously-withdrawn youth. However, there may be other youth who
are withdrawn from peers and spend considerable time alone due to their unsociable (low approach,
low avoidance motivations) and avoidance tendencies (low approach, strong avoidance motivations;
e.g., Coplan, Rose-Krasnor, Weeks, Kingsbury, Kingsbury, & Bullock, 2013). Very little is known
about the friendships of unsociable or avoidant children, although the results from one study suggest
that unsociable children may be more successful in forming and maintaining friendships than
anxiously-withdrawn children, perhaps because unsociable youth do not actively refuse friendship
bids nor do they appear to suffer from anxiety and nervousness (Ladd, Kochenderfer-Ladd, Eggum,
Kochel, & McConnell, 2011). Additional research in this area is clearly needed, however.
Friendship and Externalizing Children. Similar to shy/withdrawn children, those who act
“against” their social worlds through aggression, opposition, and impulsivity also do not have
difficulty forming friendships. Although they tend to be more disliked than other children, the
majority of aggressive children have a mutual best friendship and are as likely as well-adjusted
children to have mutual friends (e.g., Vitaro et al., 2007).
27
However, aggression, especially overt aggression, seems to be negatively related to friendship
stability (e.g., Ellis & Zarbatany, 2007), a finding that is not too surprising considering the adverse
and harmful nature of aggression. Moreover, aggressive children have friends who are more
aggressive than the friends of non-aggressive children; this is likely the case because aggressive
children oft-times must choose friends from a pool of “left overs” peers who have been rejected as
friends (Sijtsema, Lindenberg, & Veenstra, 2010). In terms of friendship quality, high levels of
relational aggression (e.g., threatening friendship withdrawal) within the friendship, and high levels of
exclusivity, negativity, jealously and intimacy, characterize the friendships of relationally aggressive
children (e.g., Banny et al., 2011). In contrast, overtly aggressive children tend to direct their overt
aggression outside their friendship dyads, and report low levels of intimacy (Grotpeter & Crick, 1996).
It is well known that a child’s association with deviant and aggressive friends and peers often
leads to subsequent behavioral and social difficulties (e.g., Bowker, Ostrov, & Raja, 2012). As such,
researchers would do well to examine the processes by which aggressive behavior becomes
increasingly acceptable and whether friendship serves to exacerbate difficulties rather than ameliorate
them during the late childhood and early adolescent years.
Summary
Most children have at least one friend. Children become friends with other children who are like
themselves in terms of “surface” characteristics and behavioral characteristics, and during the
adolescent years, with others who share similar attitudes, opinions, and values. Children's conceptions
of friendship progress from the concrete to the abstract with age, and this change is reflected in their
behavior with their friends. With age, children's friendships demonstrate more stability, more
reciprocal altruism, and more intimate personal knowledge. Friends engage in qualitatively different
types of interactions than non-friends at all ages. Although conflict often occurs within friendships,
friends resolve conflicts in ways that enhance the likelihood that the relationship will persist or
28
continue. There are also notable gender differences in the qualities of boys’ and girls’ friendships,
and research on children who are without mutual best friends supports the hypothesis that friendship
plays a significant role in social development by providing children with settings and contexts within
which to learn about themselves, their peers, and the world around them.
Children's Groups
Thus far, we have emphasized developmental trends in social interaction and the significance of
dyadic peer relationships. However, children also spend a large proportion of their time in formal and
informal group settings where membership is not defined solely by friendship. In the following
sections we explore the structural and functional characteristics of the peer group, the processes that
are involved in group formation, and group norms and organization.
The Peer Group as a Social Context
Children of preschool age or younger may play together in the classroom, the schoolyard, or the
neighborhood. However, for the most part, their behaviors are independently oriented, and their
concerns are with their own immediate ends. Somewhere in middle childhood, a change occurs.
This change can be characterized as a transformation from a group of peers to a peer group.
Peer groups are formed by children of similar ages who engage in activities based on common
interests and values. Group sizes usually range from three to over ten children, with an average of 5
or 6 members. Peer groups often comprise same-sex peers, with more mixed-gender groups
appearing in late adolescence (e.g., Berger & Rodkin, 2012; Chen, Chang, Liu, & He, 2008;
Kindermann, 2007). In childhood, relatively small and intimate cliques predominate. However,
children’s involvements in cliques tend to decline in adolescence, whereas affiliation with larger
crowds becomes a salient feature of adolescent social life (e.g., Brown & Klute, 2003). These
developmental shifts may result from broader changes in social-cognitive abilities and social-
ecological conditions. Whereas children may seek support from intimate groups as a source of
29
psychological dependence in an effort to establish personal autonomy from parents, adolescents may
strive to acquire a sense of identity in a peer context with different lifestyles and values. Moreover,
with increasing age, more sophisticated social-cognitive skills allow adolescents to form and maintain
extensive and different types of peer relationships (Brown & Klute, 2003).
There are mixed findings in the literature concerning gender differences in group
characteristics. Although some researchers have reported that boys are more likely than girls to
engage in group activities and that boys’ groups are larger in size than girls’ groups (Thorne & Luria,
2001), others have failed to find significant gender differences in the extensiveness of peer networks
(e.g., Tarrant, 2002). These results may be a function of the different methods used by researchers.
For example, gender differences in the size of peer networks have been found when observational
methods have been employed (e.g., Benenson et al., 1997); self-reports of group affiliations do not
generate the same results (e.g., Cairns & Cairns, 1994).
Peer groups tend to be homogenous with reference to social and behavioral characteristics.
For example, it has been found that in North America, groups are homogeneous in the extent to
which members engage in aggression, smoking, drinking, and drug use (e.g., Cairns & Cairns, 1994;
Urberg, Degirmencioglu, & Pilgrim, 1997; see also Alleyne & Wood, 2010 for a discussion of gang
membership in Great Britain). Group members are also similar in their joining of particular clubs,
dating frequency, and academic motivation (Kinderman, 2007). Salmivalli, Huttunen, and Lagerspetz
(1997) found that children in Finland who behaved in similar or complementary roles in bullying
situations (bullies, assistants/reinforcers, victims, defenders, and outsiders) formed group networks
with each other. Chen and his colleagues (e.g., Chen et al., 2008) found that among Chinese children,
peer groups were most homogeneous on leadership status, aggression, and learning problems. Taken
together, the results of various studies indicate that children and adolescents may hang around
together and form groups on the basis of significant social and behavioral attributes.
30
Insofar as the nature of the peer group is concerned, some researchers (e.g., Strayer & Strayer,
1976) have argued that the characteristics of a group can be represented by the additive effects of a
specific behavior (e.g., dominance) from each member on one another. It has also been argued that
the group may be developed on the basis of dyadic social relationships and thus may be best
conceived of as an aggregation of relationships (e.g., Hinde, 1987). Nevertheless, many researchers
have agreed that the characteristics of a group are emergent, that is, not reducible to the
characteristics of the individuals who compose the group. Unlike a dyadic social relationship such as
a friendship, the peer group represents a social context that is developed through the collective
functioning of members based on group norms and values. Children in the group are tied together
and, more importantly, constrained by common interests and group norms. As a result, the
“character” of the group serves to guide how children react to various situations and thus function as
a context for social interactions and individual behaviors (e.g., Berger & Rodkin, 2012).
Cliques and Crowds
According to Brown and Klute (2003), there are two main types of peer groups: cliques and crowds.
Whereas cliques are relatively smaller friendship-based groups, crowds are reputation-based
collectives of similarly stereotyped individuals who are defined by the primary attitudes or activities
their members share. Clique activities are often represented by relatively intensive interactions and
emotional involvement of group members. Crowds are more loosely organized, and less intimate
than cliques; members of a crowd may not even interact with one another. However, crowds often
grant adolescents an identity embedded within a larger social structure. Brown, Mounts, Lamborn,
and Steinberg (1993) identified various crowds including “normals”, “jocks”, “brains”, “populars”,
“greasers”, “partyers”, “loners”, and “druggies” in American high schools. For example, “jocks” are
very involved in athletics and tend to be popular; “brains” worry about their grades and have
marginal standing with peers; and “druggies” do poorly in school, are hostile towards authority
31
figures, engage in risky health behaviors such as unsafe sex and binge drinking (La Greca, Prinstein,
& Fetter, 2001).
Crowd membership is an important contributor to an adolescent’s social functioning because
of its influence on social contacts and relationships with peers. For example, the stigma associated
with some large peer crowds influences the judgments of adolescents about their peers (Horn, 2003).
Adolescents may be biased in their use of reputational or stereotypical information about particular
groups, especially when presented with ambiguous situations. It is likely that these crowd-specific
evaluations help to perpetuate group stereotypes and the structure of peer groups. The stigma that is
placed on members of a crowd may also channel adolescents into relationships with those sharing a
similar crowd label. Moreover, the reputation of the crowd prevents the members from exploring
new identities and discourages a shift to other crowd memberships.
Assessments of Peer Groups
Until recently, the measurement or quantification of peer groups was difficult, if not ineffective.
Traditionally, researchers relied on self-report data by asking individual children or adolescents to
create a list of their closest friends or group members. This single-informant approach raised
psychometric concerns with regard to the reliability and validity of the data. Researchers have
attempted to assess peer groups or networks through analyzing combined data collected from self-
reports of all or most children or adolescents in a classroom or school. An example of this approach
is Social Network Analysis (SNA, Richards, 1995). SNA is based on friendship nominations.
Children are typically asked to list up to 10 friends with whom they hang out most often in the
school. Through the analysis of a computer program, NEGOPY (Richards, 1995), clusters of
students who report having relatively high contact with one another are identified. Moreover,
NEGOPY can detect group members, liaisons, dyads, and isolates based on patterns of friendship
links and the strengths of the links; participants are assigned membership in one of the social network
32
positions. Group members are those individuals who belong to a rather exclusive social group that
comprises at least three individuals who have most (>50%) of their links with other members in the
same group and who are all connected by some paths entirely within the group. Liaisons are
individuals who have friendships with group members, but are not group members themselves.
Dyads are individuals who have one reciprocated friendship link, either to each other or to another
individual. These individuals do not belong to a group per se, but have mutual friendships. Finally,
Isolates are those children who have no reciprocated friendships. It should be noted that since SNA is
based on friendship (either reciprocal or non-reciprocal) links, groups identified through the program
represent friendship networks.
Compared with SNA, the “composite social cognitive map” (SCM) technique, developed by
Cairns, Gariepy, and Kindermann (1989), assesses peer groups more directly. Children are first asked
“Are there people in school who hang around together a lot? Who are they?” To ensure that the
respondents include themselves, a follow up question is asked “What about you? Do you hang
around together a lot with a group? Who are these people you hang around with?” Children are
expected to report on groups about which they are most knowledgeable. Based on the reports of all
participants, a matrix is constructed from the number of occasions that any two persons co-occurred
in the same group. Specifically, each participant’s group-membership profile is first generated based
on the frequencies of nominations of group-membership with every other child in the class. Then, a
profile similarity index is derived by correlating pairs of individual group-membership profiles.
Children with similar group-membership profiles are clustered into the same group (Cairns & Cairns,
1994).
This latter methodology offers several advantages. To begin with, not all children are
required as respondents in order to obtain an accurate representation of naturally occurring peer
groups. Obtaining nominations from half of the children in a particular setting seems to be
33
sufficient. As well, the examination of individual connectedness provides information beyond public
consensus about rejected or popular children. Popular children are not necessarily popular in all
social groups, and “social maps” provide a vehicle to determine this aspect of peer groups.
The Significance of Peer Groups for Individual Development
In peer group interactions, children learn a variety of specific social skills that are required for group
functioning. According to Fine (1987), peer groups teach children (1) how to engage in cooperative
activity aimed at collective rather than individual goals; (2) about social structures; (3) the skills
associated with leading and following others; (4) the control of hostile impulses towards fellow
members; and (5) to mobilize aggression in the service of group loyalty by directing it towards
"outsiders". Social and emotional connections that children establish with each other in the group
constitute a major source of support for them to cope with stress and adjustment difficulties. In
short, frequent contact, common activities and interpersonal affective connectedness among group
members make children’s groups a strong socialization influence.
It has been argued that, whereas experiences with friends may be specific to dyadic social
situations, peer groups may have a pervasive impact on individual social, emotional, and behavioral
functioning and adjustment in larger social settings. Findings from empirical research are consistent
with these arguments (e.g., Chen et al., 2008; Kindermann, 2007). Researchers have reported that
peer groups may contribute to the development of a variety of behaviors and problems such as
school dropout, teenage pregnancy and delinquency (e.g., Dijkstra, Gest, Lindenberg, Veenstra, &
Cillessen, 2012; Ellis & Zarbatany, 2007). For example, Kindermann (2007) reported that whereas
natural peer groups might be formed based on children’s motivational factors, the profile of peer
networks significantly predicts subsequent changes in individual motivation in school. Prinstein and
La Greca (2002) found that adolescents in socially active groups such as Populars and Jocks
developed lower levels of internalizing distress over time, whereas adolescents in groups that were
34
academically oriented such as the Brains exhibited some increases in internalizing distress from
childhood to adolescence. Van Zalk, Van Zalk, and Kerr (2011) found that members of Radical
crowds (Punks and Goths) in Sweden were more likely to influence each other’s behaviors than
members of other groups. The salience of the group norm, the homogeneity of the group, and the
quality of relationships among members may moderate the influence on individual behaviors
(Dishion & Piehler, 2009). The effects of the peer group are typically stronger for peripheral
members of the group because they seem to face greater pressure than nuclear members to conform
to the group norm and thus were more susceptible to peer influence (Conway, Rancourt, Adelman,
Burk, & Prinstein, 2011).
Researchers have recently used multi-level modeling to examine the significance of the peer
group for individual social behaviors and school performance (e.g., Berger & Rodkin, 2012). Chen et
al. (2008), for example, investigated group effects on social functioning and academic achievement in
Chinese children. The researchers found that individual-level relations between academic
achievement and social functioning might be mediated and facilitated by the group context. By
providing a social context for the selection and socialization processes (e.g., establishing the group
profile and reputation, mutual regulation based on group norms), the peer group served to promote
the formation of relations between academic achievement and social functioning. Moreover,
depending on specific group norms, peer group functioning might moderate the relations between
individual academic achievement and social adjustment. Compared with their counterparts in other
groups, for example, children who had academic difficulties and were affiliated with low-achieving
groups were more likely to display social problems. The low-achieving groups exacerbated social and
behavioral problems of academically poor children and placed them at heightened risk for
maladaptive social development. High-achieving groups, however, served a buffering function that
protected academically poor children from developing social problems. As a result, academically
35
weak children in high-achieving groups developed fewer social problems than their counterparts in
low-achieving groups.
Summary
Peer groups offer children a unique context for learning about themselves and others (see Vaughn &
Santos, 2009 for a review). Children's initial dyadic experiences with friends assist them in acquiring
the appropriate social skills necessary for peer acceptance. Once children are accepted by their peers,
a variety of different cliques is formed, and members are afforded the opportunity to explore the
group setting. Through membership in cliques and crowds, adolescents learn about common goals,
cooperation, the complex interrelationships that comprise a group's structure, and importantly, social
skills and qualities that are required for effective functioning in a collective context.
Peer Acceptance, Rejection, and Perceived Popularity
The experience of being liked and accepted by the peer group-at-large is known as peer acceptance and
the experience of being disliked by peers has been termed peer rejection. Being liked by peers is distinct
from being “popular,” cool, central, or highly visible, which has been termed perceived popularity (e.g.,
Bukowski, 2011). In the following sections, we examine the methods used by researchers to assess
acceptance, rejection, and perceived popularity within the peer group. We also describe findings
concerning the possible determinants of peer acceptance, rejection, and perceived popularity and the
outcomes that persistent difficulties with peers may entail.
Assessing the Quality of Children’s Peer Relationships
There currently exists a myriad of procedures designed to assess the quality of children’s peer
relationships. Basically, these procedures can be subdivided into categories corresponding to two
questions: “Is the child liked?” and “What is the child like?” (Parker & Asher, 1987). To answer
these questions, researchers have relied on several sources of information concerning the valence and
nature of children’s peer interactions, including parents, clinicians, and archival data. However, the
36
most common sources employed have involved children, teachers, and direct behavioral
observations. Children are excellent informants about who in their peer group has qualitatively good
or poor relationships. As “insiders,” peers recognize and identify characteristics of children and their
relationships which are ultimately relevant in the determination of the child’s social status and
integration within the peer group. Moreover, the judgments of peers are based on many extended
and varied experiences with those being evaluated. For example, as “insiders,” peers are privy to low
frequency but psychologically significant events (e.g., a punch in the nose or taking someone’s valued
possession), which lead to the establishment and maintenance of particular social reputations.
Finally, peer assessments of children’s behaviors and relationships represent the perspectives of many
observers with whom the target child has had a variety of relationships. Taken together, it is not
surprising that most contemporary research concerning the quality, the correlates, and the
determinants of children’s peer relationships is dominated by peer assessment methodology.
Like peers, teachers may provide useful and rich data concerning low frequency social
exchanges that may contribute to the quality of children's peer relationships. One advantage that
teacher assessments have over peer assessments is that the data collection process is much more
efficient and less time consuming. Classroom time is not necessary to gather the teacher reports. A
second advantage is that teachers may prove to be more objective than peers in their assessments of
social behavior. Teachers are not part of the group structure or behavioral schemes being evaluated;
thus, they may be valuable, objective sources of information. On the other hand, teachers may bring
with them an "adultomorphic" perspective that carries with it value judgments about social behaviors
that might differ from those of children. As well, their judgments may be biased by their relations
with children and children's gender (e.g., Ladd & Profilet, 1996).
Assessments of Peer Acceptance
37
Sociometric Nominations. The most widely used method of assessing sociometric popularity and
rejection is to have children nominate 3 to 5 peers whom they “like” and “dislike” (Cillessen, 2009).
From these nominations children are categorized into status groups based on the number of positive
and negative nominations they received from peers. In order to control for class size, nominations
are standardized within each classroom (or grade). Usually, only same-sex nominations are used to
control for the opposite sex negative biases that occur in childhood.
Based on these nominations, children have been classified into five sociometric categories.
Children who receive many “like” and few “dislike” nominations are labeled (sociometrically) popular,
those who receive many “like” and many “dislike” nominations are controversial. The other categories
are rejected (liked by few and disliked by many), neglected (liked by few and disliked by few), and average
(near the midrange of liked and disliked nominations). Over the years, researchers have found that
the more extreme sociometric classifications are moderately stable over time; popular children tend to
remain popular, and rejected children tend to remain rejected, although this stability declines over
longer intervals (see Bukowski, Cillessen, & Velasquez, 2012 for a recent discussion).
A second method to capture peer acceptance is a rating-scale measure. Rating-scale methods
involve children rating each of their classmates (or a randomly selected group of grade-mates) on a
scale (e.g., 1 = “not at all” to 5 “very much”) of how much they like to play or work each person.
This method can be used to yield a continuous indicator of peer acceptance or to classify children
into groups based on low, average, or high acceptance. An advantage of rating-scale measures is that
each child in a class or grade receives an equal amount of ratings rather than just gathering
information on the prominent or salient children, as may be the case when nominations are used.
Similarly to the measurement of peer acceptance and rejection, perceived popularity is often
measured with peer nominations. Researchers have asked children to nominate peers they believe to
be popular and peers they believe to be least popular (e.g., Cillessen, 2009). As with the sociometric
38
nominations technique, nominations of peer-perceived popularity are standardized and children are
assigned to one of three possible groups: popular, unpopular, or average (all others). Other
researchers have measured a similar construct to perceived popularity by asking teachers to nominate
students who they believe are “popular” and have many friends (Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl, & Van
Acker, 2006). Those who have simultaneously examined sociometric popularity and peer-perceived
popularity have found that these two types of measurement may identify distinct groups of children
and that correlations between acceptance and perceived popularity are moderate to strong. When
examining the sociometrically assessed controversial group in terms of perceived popularity, results
differ by study. Parkhurst and Hopmeyer (1998) found that children identified as controversial were
the most likely group to be labeled as “popular” by a peer-perception measure. All in all, traditional
assessments of likeability portray different pictures than do peer group perceptions of popularity.
Despite its "popularity" as a measurement tool, the use of sociometric techniques carries with
it some potential disadvantages. For example, some researchers have suggested that the use of
sociometric nominations and ratings may be ethically problematic. The use of negative nomination
measures may implicitly sanction negative judgments about peers and lead children to view disliked
peers even more negatively. To address this issue, Iverson, Barton, and Iverson (1997) conducted
interviews with fourth- and fifth-graders regarding their reactions to completing group-administered
sociometric nominations. Some children reported that a few of the low-status peers were talked
about 'behind their backs' but that these negative comments were never revealed to the low status
children. However, no child reported having hurt feelings, or having knowledge of anyone else
having hurt feelings. Iverson and colleagues maintain that sociometric assessments do not breach the
ethical condition of minimal risk of harm -- harm not greater than children might encounter in daily
life. Additional recent research replicates this work; neither children nor teachers report negative
consequences due to sociometric testing (Mayeux, Underwood, & Risser, 2007).
39
Sociometric techniques have other limitations such as practicality. Sociometric assessments
are most often made in schools, because this is where children spend a majority of their time in the
company of peers. However, obtaining consent from everyone involved (i.e., school administrators,
parents, teachers, children) is oft-times difficult. If children nominate a classmate who has not agreed
to participate, researchers are ethically bound not to use the data. Thus, for a researcher to obtain an
accurate picture of a school’s social structure there is strong need to obtain consent from a large
majority of the school-attending children.
Nevertheless, a great deal can be learned about normative child development through the use
of sociometric techniques and the simultaneous assessment of social behavior. The methods
designed to identify the behavioral characteristics of children are examined below.
Assessment of Child Behaviors
Peer Assessments of Social Behavior. In general, peer assessment procedures involve asking
children to nominate peers on the basis of a variety of behavioral roles or character descriptions
provided (e.g., "Who in your class is a good leader?", "Who gets into fights?", or “Who likes to play
alone?"). Nominations received from peers are summed in various ways to provide indices of a
child's typical social behavior or reputation within the peer group. A commonly used peer
assessment technique is the Class Play (e.g., the Extended Class Play, Rubin, Wojslawowicz, Rose-
Krasnor, Booth-LaForce, & Burgess, 2006). The Extended Class Play has yielded factors that measure
dimensions of aggression, shyness/anxious withdrawal, exclusion/victimization, sociability-
leadership, and prosocial behaviors.
As noted above, the use of peers as informants carries with it many advantages, the most
important of which may be that peers can identify children who engage in behaviors that are salient
to other children but too infrequent or too subtle for researchers to observe with any reliability
(Rubin et al., 2006). However, a disadvantage of peer assessments involves potential reputational
40
biases (Hymel, Wagner, & Butler, 1990). In this regard, even though a child's behaviors may change
over time, his or her "reputation" may persist with peers, perhaps due to the human tendency to view
others in dispositional terms (Mrug & Hoza, 2007). In particular, reputations are likely to be
influenced by infrequent but salient events (e.g., aggressive outbursts, social gaffes). In addition, peer
ratings are also affected by the characteristics of the “rater,” including behavioral reputation, peer
status, age, liking for the target, and situational factors (Younger, Gentile, & Burgess, 1993).
Teacher assessments of social behavior. It is not uncommon for researchers to request teachers to
assess the social and emotional characteristics of their students. Many standardized measures
presently exist. Generally, these measures can be broken down into several socio-emotional clusters
or factors that fall along dimensions of positive child behaviors, aggression, hyperactivity, and anxiety
(e.g., Ladd, Herald-Brown, & Andrews, 2009).
Achenbach and colleagues (e.g., Achenbach, 2006) have reported that the correlations
between reports of children's behavioral problems average about .60 between similar informants
seeing children under generally similar conditions (e.g., pairs of teachers); .28 between different types
of informants seeing the child under different conditions (e.g., parents versus teachers); and .22
between children's self-reports and reports by others, including teachers.
Behavioral Observations of Social Behavior. Behavioral observations represent the standard against
which all other forms of social behavioral assessment must be measured. In this regard, a "true"
face-valid picture of aggression, withdrawal, or socially competent behavior is probably best captured
from extensive observations of children, over time and across various settings. Laboratory or
analogue methods are also useful for carefully observing socially important behaviors that may be
difficult to capture or may occur less frequently in natural settings (e.g., Hubbard, 2001; Menzer,
McDonald, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, Booth-LaForce, & Schulz, 2012). From these observations, age
and gender "norms" can be established for the production of particular forms of social behavior.
41
From these "norms", procedures may be developed to identify children who deviate from their age-
mates or from children of the same gender.
Several observational taxonomies have been developed to assess the frequency of occurrence
of various behavior styles, relationship roles, and levels of social competence. For example, Rubin
(2001) developed the Play Observation Scale (POS), a norm-based time-sampling procedure to assess
free play behaviors in early and middle childhood (Figure 1). During free play (either in a class or in a
laboratory play room), behaviors with and without peers are coded on a checklist that includes the
cognitive play categories of functional-sensorimotor, exploratory, constructive, dramatic, and games-
with-rules behaviors nested within the aforementioned social participation categories of solitary,
parallel, and group activities. In addition, overt and relational aggression, rough-and-tumble play,
unoccupied and onlooker behaviors, and conversations with peers are recorded. Observational
procedures such as the Play Observation Scale are useful in targeting children whose behaviors (e.g.,
aggression, social withdrawal) deviate from age-group norms. Additionally such procedures can be
used to validate peer and teacher assessments of children's social behavior.
Unfortunately, several factors conspire against the use of observational methodology. To
begin with, observations are time, energy, and money consuming. Whereas peer and teacher
assessments can be conducted in minutes or hours, observations can require weeks or months of data
collection. Second, observations may be reactive; for example, children who are aware that they are
being observed may behave in atypical manners, perhaps suppressing negative behaviors or increasing
the production of prosocial behaviors. And third, some important behaviors may occur infrequently
or only in specific contexts, meaning that very long observations may be required.
To summarize, many different methods have been used to assess children's functioning in
their peer group. Sociometric techniques are useful indications of how children feel about a specific
child, that is, "Is the child liked?” This does not, however, inform us about the behaviors associated
42
with, or contributing to, these assessments. Conversely, assessments and behavioral observations of
children's social behaviors describe, "What the child is like" but fail to inform us about their standing
in the peer group. In the following section, we examine the relations between peer acceptance and
children's social behaviors.
Correlates and Determinants of Peer Acceptance and Popularity
Which children have qualitatively good, as opposed to poor, peer relationships? What are these
children like? These two questions have been addressed by countless studies over the last 70 years
(e.g., Northway, 1944). From the start, we must issue two cautions. Because much of the data on
these questions stem from correlational studies, one must not assume that the behaviors associated
with peer acceptance or rejection necessarily cause children's social status. Second, not all correlates
and potential causes of peer acceptance and rejection are behavioral in nature. For example,
sociometric popularity is positively associated with academic competence, physical attractiveness, and
having a good sense of humor (e.g., Daniels & Leaper, 2006). Importantly, however, the constructs
most highly associated with status in the peer group include children's social behaviors and their ways
of thinking about social phenomena.
Behavioral Correlates of Peer Acceptance
Sociometrically popular children are generally prosocial, skilled at initiating and maintaining qualitatively
positive relationships, and are assertive and named as leaders by peers (e.g., Asher & McDonald,
2009). When entering new peer situations, popular children are more likely than members of other
sociometric status groups to consider the frame of reference common to the ongoing play and to
establish themselves as sharing in this frame of reference (Putallaz & Wasserman, 1990). It is as if
they ask themselves "What's going on?" and, "How can I fit in?” Sociometrically popular children are
also less likely to draw unwarranted attention to themselves when entering ongoing playgroups. That
is, they do not talk exclusively or arrogantly about themselves and their own social goals or desires,
43
and they do not disrupt ongoing group activities (Dodge, Schlundt, Schocken, & Delugach, 1983).
When entering peer groups, and during other social activities, sociometrically popular children speak
clearly and respond contingently to the social overtures of others (Black & Logan, 1995). In short,
sociometrically popular children appear to be socially competent.
Children perceived as popular are characteristically dominant but otherwise are not as easily
described. Indeed, perceived popularity has been linked to a varied list of characteristics. For
example, perceived popularity has been associated with both physical and relational aggression, the
latter of which is intended to harm relationships and friendships, especially for older children
(Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004; Rose et al., 2004), as well as prosocial behavior (Cillessen & Mayeux,
2004; LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002). Perceived popularity has also been associated with having a
good sense of humor, academic competence, athletic ability, being attractive, being stylish and
wealthy, and rebellious and delinquent behaviors (e.g., Becker & Luthar, 2007).
In order to understand the discrepant characteristics that are related to being perceived as
popular, researchers have investigated whether there may be separate and distinct groups of perceived
popular children or if variation may be due to different cultural differences and norms. Rodkin and
colleagues (e.g., 2006) found distinct groups of “popular” youth: “model” and “tough” children.
“Model” children were perceived as being “cool” and at the same time were academically competent,
physically skilled, sociable, and were not rated as aggressive by teachers. “Tough” children were also
perceived as “cool,” but were highly aggressive and physically competent. There is also evidence that
popularity’s associations with behavior vary by gender, context, and ethnic group (Becker & Luthar,
2007). For example, attractiveness is a particularly strong predictor of perceived popularity for
suburban girls whereas substance use and athleticism seem to be more strongly related to perceived
popularity for suburban boys. Group differences are also found in urban contexts; for instance,
44
substance use and academic engagement are more predictive of peer admiration for Latino youth
than for African-American youth (Becker & Luthar, 2007).
Researchers have revealed that relational aggression may be more central than physical or
overt aggression to the establishment and maintenance of perceived popularity. In a longitudinal
investigation of acceptance, perceived popularity, and aggression, Cillessen and Mayeux (2004) found
that children who were perceived as popular subsequently increased their use of relational aggression.
They hypothesized that relational aggression may serve as a means to maintain social prominence
during adolescence, especially so for girls. Further, Rose et al. (2004) found that the association
between overt aggression and perceived popularity was fully explained through the association of
both constructs with relational aggression.
Rejected children are also quite heterogeneous in their behavioral characteristics, although the
most commonly cited correlate of peer rejection is aggression. Three forms of aggression appear to be
associated clearly and strongly with sociometric rejection -- instrumental aggression, bullying, and
relational aggression. Instrumental aggression is directed at others for the purpose of obtaining
desired objects, territories, or privilege. Bullying is the repeated harming (or the threatening thereof),
either physically or verbally, of particular victims (Salmivalli & Peets, 2009). As noted above, the goal
of relational aggression is to manipulate or disrupt relationships and friendships, and its form can be
overt or covert, but is usually covert (Crick et al., 2009). Social aggression has also been linked with
peer rejection; social aggression has been defined as aggression meant to manipulate group
acceptance and damage others’ social standing (Galen & Underwood, 1997). Regardless of type of
aggression and regardless of type of measurement (peer ratings; observations; teacher ratings)
aggression is highly correlated with peer dislike.
It is important to reiterate that most of the data we have described above are correlational. In
two studies, however, Dodge (1983) and Coie and Kupersmidt (1983) observed the interactions of
45
unfamiliar peers with one another. These interactions took place over several days. Gradually some
of the children became popular whilst others were rejected. The behaviors that most clearly
predicted peer rejection were instrumental and reactive aggression. Crick (1996) obtained similar
results over the course of a school year.
Importantly, not all aggressive children are rejected. Aggressive children comprise only 40-50
percent of the rejected group. For example, Hawley (2003) proposed that aggression may not
necessarily lead to peer rejection if it is balanced by prosocial behavior or a set of positive qualities
that facilitate interactions and positive interactions with other children. When aggressive behavior co-
occurs with disruptive, hyperactive, or inattentive and immature behavior, it is more likely to be
associated with rejection than when it does not (e.g., Miller-Johnson, Coie, Maumary-Gremaud,
Bierman, & The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2002). Further, with increasing age,
it appears as if aggression becomes decreasingly associated with rejection, especially among boys. The
negative association between physical aggression and peer acceptance decreases in strength as
children progress through junior high school (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004), perhaps as children form
groups with similar peers (Cairns et al., 1988) or as they develop more differentiated views of their
social world.
Socially anxious, timid, and withdrawn children have likewise been reported as rejected by the
peer group (Ladd, Kochenderfer-Ladd, Eggum, Kochel, & McConnell, 2011; Oh, Rubin, Bowker, et
al., 2008). Anxiously withdrawn behavior comprises the watching of familiar others from afar and
avoiding social interaction. This form of reticent behavior may reflect internalized feelings of social
anxiety and it appears to elicit peer rejection and exclusion, in vivo, from very early through late
childhood (see Rubin et al., 2009, for a review), although this may also vary as a function of the
classroom environment (Avant, Gazelle, & Faldowski, 2011).
46
There are also gender differences in how social withdrawal is related to peer rejection. Socially
withdrawn boys are more likely to be rejected than similarly behaved girls (Coplan, Arbeau, & Armer,
2008; Gazelle, 2008), perhaps because withdrawn behaviors violate male gender norms (Doey,
Coplan, & Kingsbury, 2014). However, Gazelle (2008) found that this sex difference did not hold if
children were attention-seeking or aggressive in addition to being anxious and solitary. Agreeable
anxious-solitary and normative anxious-solitary girls were less rejected than their male counterparts;
however, if children were disruptive or aggressive, in addition to being anxious and solitary, they were
equally likely to be rejected by peers, regardless of gender.
It would appear that any form of social behavior considered deviant in a particular context is
likely to be associated with peer rejection or decreased acceptance. Importantly, however, the extant
studies have been carried out mostly in Western cultures. Given that “normalcy” may have different
definitions in non-Western cultures, it may be that the behaviors associated with peer rejection in the
West are not those typically associated with rejection in other cultures. We discuss this possibility,
especially as it relates to social withdrawal, in a later section.
Social Cognitive Correlates of Peer Acceptance
Researchers have hypothesized that the ways in which children interpret and process information
about their social worlds play a causal role in determining their social behaviors (e.g., Crick & Dodge,
1994), and in turn, peer acceptance and/or rejection. An example of how social cognition may be
implicated in establishing particular types of peer relationships is taken from a social information-
processing model described by Rubin and Rose-Krasnor (1992; Figure 2). These authors speculated
that, when children face an interpersonal dilemma (e.g., making new friends or acquiring an object
from someone else), their thinking follows a particular sequence. First, children may select a social
goal. This entails establishing a representation of the desired end state of the problem solving process.
Second, they examine the task environment; this involves reading and interpreting all the relevant social
47
cues. For example, boys and girls are likely to produce different solutions when faced with a social
dilemma involving same-sex as opposed to opposite-sex peers (Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). As well, the
social status, familiarity, and age of the participants in the task environment are likely to influence the
child's goal and strategy selection (Krasnor & Rubin, 1983). Third, they access and select strategies; this
process involves generating possible plans of action for achieving the perceived social goal and
choosing the most appropriate one for the specific situation. Fourth, they implement the chosen strategy.
Finally, it is proposed that children evaluate the outcome of the strategy; this step involves assessing the
situation to determine the relative success of the chosen course of action in achieving the social goal.
If the initial strategy is unsuccessful, the child may repeat it, or select and enact a new strategy, or
abandon the situation entirely. Crick and Dodge (1994) have proposed a similar social-cognitive
model designed to account for aggression in children. This model also consists of six stages, namely,
(1) encoding social cues; (2) interpreting encoded cues; (3) clarifying goals; (4) accessing and
generating potential responses; (5) evaluating and selecting responses; and (6) enacting chosen
responses.
Lemerise and Arsenio (2000) have integrated emotional experiences into Crick and Dodge’s
(1994) social information-processing model. For example, aggressive children’s emotional reactions
to problematic social situations might include frustration or anger; anxious/withdrawn children may
react with fear. These emotions, in turn, may influence the information that is attended to and the
information that is recalled. This mood-congruent information processing might reinforce aggressive
children’s social schemas or “working models” that the social world is hostile or withdrawn children’s
notions that the social world is fear-inducing. These emotional responses may explain, in part, why
aggressive and withdrawn children respond in predictable ways to negative events befalling them.
Aggressive-rejected children demonstrate characteristic deficits or qualitative differences in
performance at various stages of these models. They are more likely than their non-aggressive and
48
more popular counterparts to assume malevolent intent when they are faced with negative
circumstances, even when the social cues are ambiguous (e.g., Dodge, Lansford, et al., 2003). When
selecting social goals, rejected-aggressive children tend to have motives that undermine, rather than
establish or enhance, their social relationships. For example, their goals might comprise “getting
even” with or “defeating” their peers (e.g., McDonald & Lochman, 2012). In contrast, sociometrically
popular children believe that negotiation and compromise will help them reach their social goals
while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships with peers (e.g., Troop-Gordon & Asher,
2005).
As noted above, children must have access to a broad repertoire of strategies to meet their
social goals. Researchers have demonstrated that aggressive and rejected children have smaller
strategic repertoires, generate more hostile or dominant strategies, and generally assess these
strategies differently from their nonaggressive or non-rejected peers (e.g., Dodge, Lansford, et al.,
2003). For example, they are more inclined to select agonistic or bribe strategies, and they are less
likely than their non-aggressive or more popular counterparts to suggest prosocial strategies in
response to social problems concerning object acquisition or friendship initiation (e.g., Crick,
Grotpeter, & Bigbee, 2002). Further, aggressive children are more likely to view aggression as a viable
or appropriate response and anticipate greater rewards for aggressive behavior (e.g., Vernberg,
Jacobs, & Hershberger, 1999).
During interviews, withdrawn children suggest that they would use more adult-dependent and
non-assertive social strategies to solve their interpersonal dilemmas (Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin,
Rose-Krasnor, & Booth-LaForce, 2006). Examining their attributions, withdrawn children are also
more likely than aggressive or comparison children to feel as if they will fail in social situations and to
attribute their social failures to dispositional characteristics rather than to external circumstances
(Wichmann, Coplan, & Daniels, 2004).
49
In summary, the social information processing profiles of rejected, withdrawn and aggressive
children are quite distinct. The latter group is likely to interpret ambiguous social stimuli as hostile
and threatening, misattribute blame to others, and respond with inappropriate anger-aggravated
hostility. There can be no doubt why such cognition-behavior sequences are associated with peer
rejection. Withdrawn children are more likely to generate adult dependent strategies and unassertive
strategies, as well as blame themselves for their social failures. Social dilemmas may evoke
emotionally anxious-fearful reactions in withdrawn children; their inability to regulate and overcome
their wariness is thought to result in an unassertive, submissive social problem solving style.
Cognitions and Feelings about the Self and Peer Acceptance
Rejection Sensitivity. Also of relevance to understanding how social cognitions are related to
peer acceptance is the construct of rejection sensitivity. Rejection sensitivity has been defined as the
tendency to defensively expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection (Downey, Lebolt, Rincon,
& Freitas, 1998). It is typically assessed by presenting children with hypothetical scenarios and asking
them how nervous or angry they would feel and how much they expect to be rejected in each
situation. Downey and colleagues have hypothesized that expectations of rejection that are
accompanied by anger may lead to aggressive behavior with peers and that (nervous or) anxious
expectations of rejection may lead to internalizing or anxious behaviors with peers. In support of this
hypothesis, Downey et al. (1998) found that angry expectations of rejection were positively associated
with teacher-rated aggression and negatively linked with social competence. Further, anxious
rejection-sensitivity has been linked with social withdrawal, social anxiety, and depression (e.g.,
London, Downey, Bonica, & Paltin, 2007), especially for adolescents who perceive low levels of
support from parents and friends (McDonald, Bowker, Rubin, Laursen, & Duchene, 2010).
Concurrently, rejection sensitivity seems to be related to overestimations of peer rejection (Zimmer-
Gembeck, Nesdale, McGregor, Mastro, Goodwin, & Downey, 2013). Longitudinal evidence also
50
suggests that peer rejection predicts increases in rejection sensitivity over time (Sandstrom, Cillessen,
& Eisenhower, 2003), especially for youth who place high importance on social relationships (Wang,
McDonald, Rubin, & Laursen, 2012).
Self-Perceptions. Do children feel and think better about themselves when they experience
positive peer relationships? Is there a relation between negative self-perceptions and peer rejection?
These important questions have attracted much research attention. Perceived social competence was first
defined and assessed by Harter (1998) as an index of children's awareness of their own peer
acceptance or social skillfulness. In general, popular children feel positively about themselves and
believe that they are socially competent (Ladd & Price, 1986).
Most rejected children think more poorly about their own social competencies than do their
more popular age-mates. Longitudinal evidence shows that being rejected in school predicts later
negative social self-concept (e.g., Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003). It may also be that negative self-
perceptions predict increases in peer rejection (Salmivalli & Isaacs, 2005), although it is likely that
peer rejection and negative self-perceptions mutually reinforce one another. However, this general
association may be true only for that group of rejected children described as anxiously-withdrawn,
submissive, sensitive, and/or wary (e.g., Salmivalli, Ojanen, Haanpää, & Peets, 2005). As indicated
above, withdrawn children display a pattern of self-defeating attributions for social situations (i.e.,
they attribute their social failures to stable and internal causes and their social successes to unstable
and external causes; e.g., Wichmann et al., 2004). In contrast, rejected-aggressive children do not
report thinking poorly about their social relationships with peers; indeed, some aggressive children
appear to overestimate their social competence and peer acceptance (e.g., Diamantopoulou et al.
2008; de Castro et al., 2007). These findings are in keeping with the results of studies concerning
extremely withdrawn and extremely aggressive children; it is only the former group that reports
51
having difficulty with their social skills and peer relationships (e.g., Coplan, Prakash, O’Neil, &
Armer, 2004).
Loneliness. It should not be surprising to learn that children who feel socially incompetent, and
who believe that others dislike them, come to develop feelings of isolation and loneliness. In this
regard, it has been found consistently that chronic peer rejection and victimization may also lead to
increases in loneliness over time (e.g., Boivin, Hymel, & Bukowski, 1995). Indeed, it is the rejected-
submissive/timid/withdrawn subgroup that reports being lonelier than their more accepted peers;
rejected-aggressive children are less likely to express negative feelings in this regard (Bukowski et al.,
2010; Gazelle & Druhen, 2009; Ladd, 2006).
Finally, as noted above, having a good friend can go a long way in preventing the
development of negative feelings about one's social life. For example, friendship quality is associated
with indices of psychosocial adjustment and functioning, such as self-esteem (Rubin et al., in press).
These data help to explain the finding that rejected-aggressive children do not report difficulties with
the self-system. Although classmates generally dislike this group, aggressive children tend to affiliate
with others like them and may form and maintain high-quality friendships, especially if they are also
prosocial (McDonald, Wang, Menzer, Rubin, & Booth-LaForce, 2012). The social support available
to them, albeit from a deviant subgroup, may buffer aggressive children from developing negative
self-perceptions and loneliness.
Summary. We have described the characteristics of sociometrically popular and rejected, and
perceived popular children. Of these groups, rejected and, at times, perceived popular children
appear to have substantive social and emotional problems. Furthermore, peer rejection appears to
exacerbate the difficulties typically faced by children who are characteristically aggressive and those
who are submissive, wary, and withdrawn. Rejected-aggressive children can best be characterized as
behaviorally hostile and as having a limited social-cognitive repertoire insofar as resolving their
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interpersonal problems is concerned. Indeed, they believe that they can “get things done” (meet their
social goals) by behaving in an aggressive manner. Furthermore, they do not appear to understand
that their behaviors may lead others to dislike them; they do not report feeling poorly about their
social skills or relationships. Rejected-withdrawn children, on the other hand, can best be
characterized as behaviorally submissive and as thinking and feeling poorly about themselves and
their social relationships; they also indicate feelings of isolation and loneliness. Given these
characterizations, it behooves researchers to query whether peer rejection should be used as a "red-
flag" to identify children who may be at risk for developing negative psychological "outcomes" as
adolescents or adults. We address this question directly in the following section.
Outcomes of Peer Relationship Difficulties
There is some debate among researchers as to the ‘causal’ nature implied by the relations typically
reported between peer rejection and psychological maladjustment. For example, it is possible that
underlying behavioral tendencies that may account for children being rejected by peers (i.e.,
aggression) also contribute toward later negative outcomes (i.e., juvenile delinquency). In this regard,
the experience of peer rejection itself may not lead, in and of itself, to adjustment difficulties.
However, results from a series of recent longitudinal studies have provided compelling support for
the notion that peer rejection does make a unique contribution to subsequent maladjustment.
Peer Rejection and Externalizing Problems
Results of longitudinal studies have indicated that peer rejection in childhood is associated with a
wide range of externalizing problems in adolescence, including delinquency, conduct disorder,
attentional difficulties, and substance abuse (Kupersmidt & Coie, 1990). These findings are not
particularly surprising given the well-established link between aggression and peer rejection, and
especially given that aggressive-rejected children are more likely to remain rejected over time.
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However, other studies have indicated that early peer rejection provides a unique increment in
the prediction of later anti-social outcomes, even when controlling for previous levels of aggression
and externalizing problems (e.g., Ladd & Burgess, 2001; Miller-Johnson et al., 2002). For example,
Laird, Jordan, Dodge, Pettit, and Bates (2001) followed 400 children from early childhood through to
adolescence. They reported that sociometric rejection at ages 6-9 years predicted externalizing
problems in adolescence, even when controlling for the stability of externalizing problems over this
age period.
The development of new statistical and methodological techniques has also allowed
researchers to deconstruct the relation between peer rejection and subsequent maladjustment. For
example, Dodge and colleagues (2003) reported that peer rejection predicted longitudinal ‘growth’ in
aggression over time (controlling for original levels of aggression) from early to middle childhood,
and from middle childhood to adolescence. The process is similar earlier in childhood as well (e.g.,
Sturaro, van Lier, Cuijpers, & Koot, 2011). Dodge et al. (2003) also found a developmental pathway
in which peer rejection led to more negative information processing patterns (i.e., hostile cue
interpretation), which in turn led to increased aggression. Additionally, Prinstein and LaGreca (2004)
found that girls’ childhood aggression predicted later substance use and sexual risk behavior, but only
for those girls who were disliked or rejected in junior high school. Given that changes in peer
acceptance tend to precede changes in aggression over time, but not vice-versa, one can begin to
understand the truly transactional nature of the relation between peer rejection and the development of
externalizing problems over time (Parker, Rubin, Erath, Wojslawowicz, & Buskirk, 2006).
Peer Rejection and Internalizing Problems
.
Results from a growing number of studies have
indicated that anxious-withdrawal is predictively associated with internalizing problems across the
lifespan, including low self-esteem, anxiety problems, loneliness, and depressive symptoms (e.g., Gest,
1997; Prior, Smart, Sanson, & Oberklaid, 2000). Rubin and colleagues followed a group of children
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from kindergarten (age 5 years) to the ninth grade (age 15 years). They reported that withdrawal in
kindergarten and grade two predicted self-reported feelings of depression, loneliness, and negative
self-worth, and teacher ratings of anxiety in the fifth grade (age 11 years; Hymel, Rubin, Rowden, &
LeMare, 1990). In turn, social withdrawal in the fifth grade predicted self-reports of loneliness,
depression, negative self-evaluations of social competence, feelings of not belonging to a peer group
that could be counted on for social support, and parental assessments of internalizing problems in
the ninth grade (Rubin, Chen, McDougall, Bowker, & McKinnon, 1995).
Researchers have also explored the unique role of peer rejection in the prediction of
internalizing problems (for a review, see Prinstein, Rancourt, Guerry, & Browne, 2009). For
example, in a longitudinal study following 405 children from kindergarten to grade 7, Kraatz-Keily,
Bates, Dodge, and Pettit (2000) reported that peer rejection predicted increases in both internalizing
and externalizing problems over time. Relatedly, Gazelle and Ladd (2003) found that shy-anxious
kindergarteners who were also excluded by peers displayed a greater stability in anxious solitude
through the fourth grade. Anxious-solitary children who were not excluded by peers displayed
decreased anxious solitude over time. In this regard, there appears to be a dialectic or transactional
relation between anxious-solitude and rejection (e.g., Rubin et al., 2009).
Self-Perceived Rejection. In understanding the link between peer rejection and psychosocial
adjustment, it may also be important to consider the role of children’s perceptions of their own peer
rejection. Children’s perceived rejection has been associated with increases in internalizing and
externalizing problems over time (e.g., Guerra, Asher, DeRosier, 2004; Kistner, Balthazor, Risi, &
Burton, 1999). Moreover, Sandstrom, Cillessen, and Eisenhower (2003) demonstrated that children’s
self-appraisal of peer rejection was associated with increased internalizing and externalizing problems
even after controlling for actual peer rejection. Thus, children’s beliefs that they are rejected may play
an influential role in the development of psychosocial maladjustment.
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Perceived Popularity and Adjustment. Initial research suggests that perceived popularity seems to
have both positive and negative implications for adjustment. Perceived popularity seems protective
for youth in some ways; it is negatively associated with internalizing symptoms (Litwick, Aikins, &
Cillessen, 2012) and positively linked to self-esteem (De Bruyn & Van Den Boom, 2005). Popularity
may even buffer relationally aggressive youth from developing depression and anxiety. However, as
noted above, perceived popularity is also associated with relational aggression (e.g., Cillessen &
Mayeux, 2004) and bullying behaviors (Caravita, Di Blasio, & Salmivalli, 2009) and may also lead to
increased risk-taking behaviors in adolescence. For example, perceived popularity early in high school
is predictive of increased alcohol use and sexual activity at the end of high school (Mayeux,
Sandstrom, & Cillessen, 2008). Nonetheless, how perceived popularity predicts adjustment in
adulthood is still unclear. Research by Sandstrom and Cillessen (2010) suggests that perceived
popularity in high school is associated with increased risk-taking behaviors in early adulthood, except
for relationally aggressive boys. Instead, for relationally aggressive boys, perceived popularity may
buffer them from depression, psychopathology, and workplace victimization. Clearly, additional
research is needed on the long-term implications of perceive popularity for later adjustment.
Origins of Children's Peer Relationships and Social Skills
By now, it should be obvious that children's peer relationships and social skills are of central
importance to their experience of everyday life. Popular and socially competent children feel and
think well of themselves, and they fare better in school than their less popular and skilled age-mates.
Rejected children tend to lead less successful lives, both academically and personally.
It seems reasonable to ask questions about the origins of children's peer relationships and
social skills. There is growing evidence that biological or dispositional factors (e.g., child
temperament) directly and indirectly affect the quality of children's peer relationships. The social
well-being of children also appears to be influenced by parent-child relationships and parents'
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socialization beliefs and behaviors. Here we review dispositional, parenting, and ecological factors
that have been associated with children's peer relationships.
Temperament and Peer Relationships
Temperament can be broadly defined as the biological basis for the affective arousal, expression, and
regulatory components of personality (Goldsmith, Buss, Plomin, Rothbart, Thomas, Chess, Hinde, &
McCall, 1987). Variability in these components contributes to differences in individual personality
characteristics, and is associated with a wide range of developmental outcomes. There is compelling
evidence that child temperament plays a particularly powerful role in children’s social interactions
with peers. For example, in a longitudinal study from early childhood to adolescence, Prior and
colleagues (2000) reported that almost half the variation in children’s social skills could be explained
by temperamental traits.
Researchers have focused on three broad groups of temperamental traits which appear to be
differentially associated with children’s social functioning in the peer group. The first group of
temperamental traits is related to resistance to control (sometimes labeled manageability). These
characteristics encompass lack of attention, low agreeableness, and strong attention to rewarding
stimuli. These “difficult to manage” children tend to be boisterous and socially immature, and
unresponsive to parents’ and teachers’ attempts to modulate their activities (Bates, 2001). In the peer
group, such children tend to have poorer social skills, and are more likely to “act out” and display
other externalizing problems (e.g., Laursen, Hafen, Rubin, Booth-LaForce, & Rose-Krasnor, 2010).
The second broadly defined group of temperamental traits that has been related to children’s
peer relationships concerns negative affect (sometimes labeled reactivity) and includes negative emotional
reactivity and difficulty-to-regulate or -control affect. Children who are highly reactive and poorly
regulated are easily angered, frustrated, and provoked by peers, and do not adequately control the
expression of these negative emotions (e.g., Degnan, Hane, et al., 2011). These children tend to have
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poorer social skills, and display both internalizing and externalizing problems (Barhight, Hubbard, &
Hyde, 2013; Eisenberg, Cumberland, et al., 2001; Rubin, Burgess, Dwyer, & Hastings, 2003). Clearly,
these constellations of dispositionally based behaviors mark children for peer rejection.
There is also some indication that emotion regulation may be a risk/protective factor in the
relation between children’s sociability and social adjustment. Rubin, Coplan, Fox, and Calkins (1995)
reported that temperamentally sociable children who lacked emotion regulatory control were disruptive
and aggressive among peers; yet, their sociable counterparts who could regulate their emotions were
socially competent. Dispositionally unsociable children, who were good emotion regulators, appeared
to suffer no ill effects of their lack of social behavior. These children were productive engagers of
constructive and exploratory play when in the peer group. Unsociable children who were poor
emotion regulators, however, demonstrated anxious and wary behaviors and were more behaviorally
reticent in a peer play setting. Furthermore, these unsociable, poor emotion-regulating children were
viewed by parents as having more internalizing problems than their age-mates. Thus, preschoolers
who are emotionally dysregulated appear to behave in ways that will result in peer rejection,
regardless of sociability. Moreover, difficulties in emotion regulation can contribute towards the
development of both internalizing and externalizing problems (see also Eisenberg et al., 2001).
Finally, the third group of temperamental traits constitutes shyness/inhibition and involves
wary responses to social situations and novelty. Temperamentally shy children may want to play with
other children, but tend to refrain from talking and interacting with peers because of social fear and
anxiety (e.g., Coplan et al., 2004). With peers, shy children display less socially competent and
prosocial behaviors, employ less positive coping strategies, and are more likely to develop anxiety
problems (see Rubin et al, 2009 for a review). Moreover, as noted above, shy and socially withdrawn
children become increasingly rejected and victimized by peers over time (Gazelle & Rudolph, 2004).
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Parenting and Peer Relationships
Children usually grow up living with their parents and one or more siblings. Moreover, their families
bring with them societal and cultural expectations and values, and stressors and supports that must
assuredly influence children's social repertoires. Parents serve at least three roles or functions in the
child’s development of social competence and qualitatively positive peer relationships. First, parent-
child interaction represents a context within which many competencies necessary for social
interaction with others develop. Second, the parent-child relationship provides a safety net
permitting the child the freedom to examine the features of the social universe, thereby enhancing the
development of social skills. Third, it is within the parent-child relationships that the child begins to
develop expectations and assumptions about interactions and relationships with other people (Booth-
LaForce & Kerns, 2009).
Parent-Child Attachment Relationships and Peer Relationships. Because parent-child relationships
precede those with peers, experience in the family may play an important role in influencing the
development of peer relationships (e.g., Booth-LaForce & Kerns, 2009). Attachment theory has
provided a framework and a methodology for making predictions from parent-child relationships to
peer relationships. According to attachment theorists, parents who are able and willing to recognize
their infants’ or toddlers’ emotional signals, to consider their children's perspectives, and to respond
promptly and appropriately according to their children's needs help their children develop a belief
system that incorporates the parent as one who can be relied on for protection, nurturance, comfort,
and security. A sense of trust in relationships results from the secure infant/toddler-parent bond.
Furthermore, the child forms a belief that the self is competent and worthy of positive response from
others.
The securely attached young child feels secure, confident, and self-assured when introduced
to novel settings; this sense of felt security fosters the child’s exploration of the social environment.
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Exploration of the social milieu leads to peer interaction and play, which, in turn, leads to the
development of skills essential for the establishment and maintenance of positive peer relationships.
Alternatively, when children’s parents are insensitive and/or unresponsive, they form insecure
attachments, come to view themselves in a negative light (low self-worth; perceived incompetence),
and perceive the social world as an unpredictable, dangerous place.
There are, in fact, considerable data documenting the relations between the quality of infant-
parent attachment relationships and the quality of children’s social interactions and relationships with
peers throughout the first 5 years of life (see Booth-LaForce & Kerns, 2009 for a review). For
example, a secure attachment relationship has been found to predict social competence and
acceptance in the peer environment and qualitatively strong and supportive friendships later in
childhood and adolescence (e.g., Booth-LaForce, Oh, Kim, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, and Burgess, 2006;
Rubin, Dwyer, et al., 2004). Insecure attachments have been associated with subsequent social
incompetence (e.g. aggression; social withdrawal), peer rejection, and unsupportive friendships (e.g.,
Burgess, Marshall, Rubin, & Fox, 2003; Chango, McElhaney, & Allen, 2009; Fearon, Bakermans-
Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Lapsley & Roisman, 2010).
In support of the notion that the children’s internal working models (IWM) provids substance for
their subsequent social cognitions and behaviors, Cassidy, Scolton, Kirsh, and Parke (1996) found that
children assessed as securely attached at 3½ years of age provided more prosocial responses to
negative events and had more positive representations than insecure children about peer intentions
during ambiguous negative acts when they were 10 years old. In concert with attachment theory, the
authors speculated that securely attached children develop representations of their mothers as
sensitive and responsive, and thus, are unlikely to do something that would intentionally harm them.
These internal representations guide children to develop similar conceptions of their peers.
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Importantly, however, according to attachment theory, IWMs of relationships with parents
should most directly influence the manner in which children think and feel about their interactions
and relationships with close friends (Booth-LaForce & Kerns, 2009). Given that the parent-child
attachment relationship is a dyadic one, it would suggest that the dyadic friendship relationships of
securely attached children should differ from those of insecurely attached children. Support for this
notion stems from studies in which children and adolescents with secure attachment relationships, in
contrast to those with insecure attachments, are found (1) to report having one or more good friend;
(2) to indicate fewer problems with peers such as being ridiculed or excluded from group activities;
(3) to have fewer negative and asynchronous friendships; and (4) to be capable of establishing and
maintaining close and intimate friendships with peers (e.g., Furman, Simon, Shaffer, and Bouchey,
2002; McElwain & Volling, 2004; Mayseless, & Scharf, 2007; Rubin, Dwyer, Booth-LaForce, Kim,
Burgess, & Rose-Krasnor, 2004).
Parenting Behaviors and Peer Relationships. Parents may influence the development of social
behaviors, and ultimately, the quality of their children’s peer relationships by (1) providing
opportunities for their children to have contact with peers; (2) monitoring their children’s peer
encounters when necessary; (3) coaching their children to deal competently with interpersonal peer-
related tasks; and (4) disciplining unacceptable, maladaptive peer directed behaviors (Parke & O’Neill,
1999). For example, Ladd and Golter (1988) reported that mothers who arranged child-peer
engagements, had preschoolers who (1) had a larger number of playmates; (2) had more consistent
play companions in their informal non-school networks; and (3) were better liked by peers. Also,
mothers who initiate peer activities are likely to have children who are socially competent (e.g., Kerns,
Cole, & Andrews, 1998; Ladd & Hart, 1992). From these findings, it would appear that parents’
provision of opportunities for peer interaction help empower their children with the abilities to
initiate and manage their own peer relationships.
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Parents also regularly monitor, supervise, and coach their children during peer activities. Lack
of parental monitoring has generally been linked to children’s externalizing behavior difficulties and
adolescent delinquency (Barber, 2002). Furthermore, children whose parents rely on indirect rather
than direct monitoring of their peer contacts are less hostile towards others (Ladd & Golter, 1988).
Moreover, children whose mothers and fathers offer advice on how to manage their social dilemmas
are viewed by parents and teachers as socially competent (McDowell, Parke, & Wang, 2003). And,
mothers’ over- as well as under-involvement in orchestrating and monitoring peer contacts is
detrimental to children’s social success, at least among boys (Ladd & Hart, 1992).
Mothers of more popular children are more active and effective in supervising their children’s
peer-related behaviors during free play than mothers of less well-accepted children. Furthermore,
mothers of less-popular children suggest that they would coach their children to be more avoidant in
response to hypothetical problems involving peers, whereas mothers of more-popular children
encourage their children to employ positive and assertive strategies for handling interpersonal
problems involving peers (Finnie & Russell, 1988).
In summary, when parents provide their children with opportunities to play with peers, coach
their children through difficulties with peers, and facilitate their children’s peer interactions, their
children are more popular among their age-mates.
Parental Behaviors. Much of the research on parenting and peer relationships has focused on
the importance of two dimensions of parenting: warmth and control. Warmth typically denotes
parental behaviors such as praise, encouragement, physical affection, physical and psychological
availability, and approval. Control, has been defined as consistent enforcement of rules accompanied
by an ability to make age-appropriate demands on the child. As noted above, children’s behaviors
influence the extent to which they may be accepted or rejected by peers. In this regard, studies that
simply correlate parental behavior with peer acceptance miss a “step” in the link between these two
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phenomena. However, researchers who study links between parenting and children’s social behaviors
provide the information necessary to understand the links between parenting and peer acceptance.
For example, with regard to the socialization of socially competent behaviors, parents who are
supportive, warm, and appropriately controlling have children who display prosocial, competent
behaviors in the peer group and are popular among their classmates (see Eisenberg, Fabes, &
Spinrad, 2006 for a review).
Parents who may be characterized as physically punitive, cold, rejecting, overly critical, and
inconsistent in their discipline practices have children who behave aggressively with peers and friends
(e.g., Dishion & Patterson, 2006); furthermore, harsh parenting has been shown to be correlated with
the extent to which youth consort with deviant peers (Brody et al., 2001). In this regard, parents
who are cold, rejecting, and punitive provide substantive models of hostility to their children
(Patterson, 1983). Researchers have also consistently shown that parents of aggressive children
inadvertently reinforce aggressive and impulsive behaviors (Dishion & Patterson, 2006). Importantly,
it is not only cold, hostile, authoritarian parenting that promotes childhood aggression. Parents of
aggressive children have also been found to be emotionally neglectful and lacking in responsiveness
(Greenberg, Speltz, & Deklyen, 1993). Thus, parental permissiveness, indulgence, and lack of
supervision appear connected to children’s demonstrating aggressive behavior in the peer group.
Taken together, punitive, rejecting, cold, and overly permissive parenting behaviors are associated
with, and predictive of, childhood aggression, which in turn, is associated with, and predictive of,
peer rejection.
Research concerning parenting behaviors and styles associated with social withdrawal (the
other major behavioral correlate of peer rejection) focuses on over-control and over-protection (see
Hastings, Nuselovici, Rubin, & Cheah, 2010 for a review). Parents who use high power-assertive
strategies and who place many constraints on their children’s independence and exploration appear to
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hinder the development of social competence and interaction with peers (Degnan, Henderson, Fox,
& Rubin, 2008). Furthermore, parental over-control, intrusion, and overprotection are likely to
exacerbate the expression of social withdrawal over time and to predict the development of such
internalizing difficulties as social anxiety (Booth-LaForce et al., 2012; Lewis-Morrarty et al, 2012).
Biology, Neuroscience, Genetics, and Peer Relationships
There has been a growing interest in research focusing on the genetic, neural, and biological
mechanisms that influence children’s social behaviors and relationships (e.g., Guroglu et al., 2008).
For example, the field of social cognitive neuroscience aims to better understand the role that these
biological components and mechanisms play in the development of social cognition. Relevant to the
study of peer interactions and relationships, social cognitive neuroscientists have begun to explore the
brain-behavior relation in situations comprising experiences of peer rejection, peer acceptance, and
social evaluation (Eisenberger, Gable, & Lieberman, 2007; Guyer, McClure-Tone, Shiffrin, Pine,
Nelson, 2009; Howarth, Guyer, & Perez-Edgar, 2013). Researchers have also begun to examine the
extent to which an individual’s genetic traits, in combination with environmental effects, influence
such peer-related phenomena as aggressive behavior, bullying, and friendship (Brendgen et al., 2008a,
2008b). In the following section we explore our understanding of the interaction between biological
mechanisms and peer relationships.
Theoretical Foundations. When explaining the relations between biological processes, social
cognitions, social behaviors and social relationships, a hybrid evolutionary/attachment framework
has been used to frame the goals of the research (e.g., Masten, Morelli, & Eisenberger, 2009).
Specifically, this framework suggests that, in addition to basic needs of food, water, and shelter,
humans must also fulfill a need related to social connectedness, or social belongingness (Lieberman &
Eisenberger, 2008). In a series of fMRI studies examining brain activity during virtual experiences of
social exclusion, Eisenberger and colleagues have found increased activation in a specific area of the
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brain (the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) that has been implicated in distress experienced during
physical pain (Eisenberger, Gable, & Lieberman, 2007; Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2004; Eisenberger,
Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). These researchers have suggested that this similarity in brain
activation between responses to physical pain and social exclusion may be due to an innate need for
social attachment and connectedness to others. That is, for infants, the need to be socially connected
supersedes the need for food, water, or shelter. Without the connection to a caregiver, none of these
other needs can be fulfilled, and survival will be unlikely. Biologically, it may be the case that, just as
we perceive types of pain when our needs for food (e.g. hunger) or shelter (e.g. sunburn, freezing) are
not met, we are “hard-wired” to perceive similar pain when there is a lack, or anticipated lack, of
social connectedness or belonging (Lieberman & Eisenberger, 2008). Thus, these “social pains” are
activated during instances of peer rejection or victimization, when our biological needs for belonging
are being rebuffed or threatened.
Recent Relevant Findings: Cortisol. One biophysiological technique that is being used when
studying peer relationships is the collection of cortisol, a stress hormone. The collection of cortisol in
studies related to peer interactions and relationships is usually carried out via saliva samples provided
by the participants. Cortisol levels fluctuate throughout the course of the day, with levels typically
higher in the morning and decreasing throughout the remainder of the day. However, during
stressful situations, cortisol levels increase (Gunnar & Donzella, 2002).
Researchers have begun to examine the associations between cortisol levels and peer
rejection/acceptance. Thus far, the extant research suggests that, after experiencing social rejection,
adults and children have higher levels of cortisol compared to (a) their non-rejected counterparts, and
(b) their own cortisol levels prior to rejection. These results have been taken to suggest that the
stress elicited by social rejection can be monitored physiologically; individuals encounter difficulties in
regulating cortisol levels following peer rejection (Blackhart, Eckel, & Tice, 2007; Gunnar et al.,
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2003). Researchers have also suggested that physiological vulnerability may be greater for individuals
whose temperaments are especially reactive to stress. For example, as noted above, shy, behaviorally
inhibited children are especially reactive to stressful social situations. Thus, it is not surprising that
they produce higher levels of cortisol following initiation to new social groups. Indeed, shy/inhibited
preschoolers maintain higher levels of cortisol than their typical or exuberant counterparts even when
the social situation has become increasingly familiar to them (e.g., over the course of a school year,
Tarullo, Milner, & Gunnar, 2011). What remains unclear is whether shyness or behavioral inhibition
is (a) associated with the production of even higher levels of cortisol after experiencing in-vivo peer
rejection or neglect (and how early in children’s lives such biological reactions can be assessed) and
(b) whether the presence of a close friend can buffer stress reactivity for shy/inhibited children.
Recent Relevant Findings: Genes. Genetic studies utilize samples of monozygotic (MZ) and/or
dizygotic (DZ) twins to help better understand the contribution of shared genetic traits, shared
environmental effects, and unique environmental effects on development. Brendgen and colleagues
have focused, for example, on the associations between childhood aggression, peer victimization, and
genetic effects in MZ and DZ twins (Brendgen et al., 2008a, 2008b). They hypothesized that genetic
effects would moderate the relation between child aggression and peer victimization. Results
suggested that, while genetic effects accounted for nearly 50% of the variability in aggression, peer
victimization was almost entirely environment driven. Additionally, in support of the moderation
model, highly victimized girls demonstrated highly aggressive behavior only if they also had a genetic
predisposition towards aggressive behavior. However, boys who were highly victimized were highly
aggressive regardless of their genetic predisposition (Brendgen et al., 2008b). Brendgen et al. (2009)
have also found that an increased genetic predisposition for depressive behavior is related to a higher
risk of peer rejection in MZ and DZ twin pairs.
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The shift in genetically informed studies to examine more complex peer group interactions
has raised many interesting questions for those interested in individual differences and peer
processes. One logical next step would be to obtain a clearer understanding of what exactly is meant
by unique environmental effects. Researchers have postulated that different parenting styles (e.g.
psychological control) or peer group effects (e.g., rejection, victimization) may comprise a significant
piece of the unique environmental effect puzzle. As such, researchers may well consider these when
attempting to examine which specific environmental effects influence behavior above and beyond
genetic factors. Additionally, future studies should focus on how those with genetic predispositions
for aggressive or shy/inhibited behavior are influenced by the peer group throughout the years of
childhood and adolescence.
Recent Relevant Findings: Imaging. Researchers have explored the neural correlates of social
exclusion, empathy, prosocial behavior, and social anxiety (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams,
2003; Masten, Morelli, & Eisenberger, 2009; Masten et al., 2009; Guyer et al., 2008). Typically,
researchers who have studied social exclusion or peer rejection employ a paradigm that involves
fMRI scanning whilst participants experience some form of virtual social exclusion. One tool that
has been used to induce social exclusion is the game ‘Cyberball’ (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000).
During Cyberball the participant plays a cyber-game of “catch” with two other supposed (virtual)
players. After some sets of equal passing, the two virtual players begin to pass only to one another,
thereby excluding the participant. Other researchers who study the relations between social anxiety
and anticipated peer evaluation use fMRI scanning and a peer chat room task (Guyer et al., 2009,
2012). In this paradigm, participants view a number of photographs of unfamiliar peers and rate how
interested they would be in chatting with each peer. Participants are also told they are being rated by
these unfamiliar peers. Then, the participants return for a second visit and undergo fMRI scanning,
during which photos of the unfamiliar peers are shown with text indicating whether or not the peer
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was interested or not interested in interacting with the participant. Results have consistently shown
that brain activation patterns differ by age, gender, or both based on the type of feedback received
(acceptance versus rejection) from the respective high/low interest peers (Guyer et al., 2009, 2012).
The use of imaging is helping researchers to better understand the complex relations between
neural processes and various aspects of social interaction and relationships. The foundation for
imaging as a means to study peer relationships is still in the process of construction, and there is still
progress to be made in terms of accurately simulating peer interactions related to exclusion,
acceptance, and rejection. For example, it would behoove researchers to examine neural reactions to
youth’s confrontation with images (and virtually presented behaviors) of familiar rather than
unfamiliar or virtual peers. Also, data should be collected that would allow distinctions between
neural reactions to the “virtual” behaviors of unknown peers versus friends or known aggressive,
withdrawn, popular, or rejected peers. While it may not be feasible for current technology to scan
participants as they actively engage in real-world social situations, such situations may be more closely
achieved by using known peers as visual stimuli.
Summary. New methods that involve biophysiological and imaging techniques can help
advance our understanding of how the brain and body respond when approaching, entering, and
engaging with the peer group. Gaining a better understanding of the biological and genetic
mechanisms that underlie or accompany social behaviors, cognitions, and relationships may
eventually help inform parenting and teaching practices, intervention paradigms, clinical practice, and
social policy.
Culture and Peer Relationships
The development and correlates, causes, and outcomes of children’s social behaviors and
relationships may vary across cultures. The vast majority of the published data on children’s peer
experiences are derived from studies conducted in North America and Western Europe. Simply put,
68
we know very little about the development and significance of peer acceptance, rejection, and
friendship in non-Western cultures. Among the many aspects of socio-emotional and cognitive
functioning in human development, children’s experiences in the peer group are perhaps most
sensitive to cultural influences (Hinde, 1987). Children’s behaviors in the peer context, peer
evaluations and responses in interactions, the formation of peer relationships, and the organization of
peer groups are likely to be culture-bound because they are often directed by cultural beliefs, norms,
and values (Chen, 2012; Rubin, Oh, Menzer, & Ellison, 2011).
Cultural influences may be reflected in children’s peer interaction styles, peer acceptance and
rejection, and the structural and functional features of friendships and groups. At the behavioral level,
socialization pressures resulting from cultural endorsement and constraint may be directly associated
with the prevalence and development of specific behaviors such as cooperation and prosocial
behavior (e.g., Schneider, Woodburn, Soteras-de Toro, & Udvari, 2005), compliance (Chen et al.,
2003), and socio-dramatic behaviors (e.g., Farver & Lee-Shin, 2000). At the overall peer acceptance level,
cultural value systems determine, to a great extent, standards for peer acceptance and rejection of
children who are prototypically assertive (Chen, Li, Li, Li, & Liu, 2000) and aggressive (Casiglia,
LoCoco & Zapulla, 1998) among their peers. Finally, the functional roles that children’s friendships
and peer groups fulfill may vary across culture (see Rubin et al., 2011 for a review). For example,
whereas the enhancement of self-esteem is regarded as particularly significant among friends in
Western cultures, it is not highly appreciated among children in other cultures such as Chinese,
Indonesian, and Arab and Caribbean cultures (e.g., Chen, 2012; French, Pidada, & Victor, 2005). In
contrast, the function of instrumental aid seems to be regarded as more important in many group-
oriented cultures such as Asian and Latino cultures (e.g., Chen et al., 2004; Way, 2006). Similarly,
whereas group affiliation is viewed, in Western cultures, as fulfilling individual psychological needs,
such as the development of self-identity and enhancement of feelings about self-worth, Chinese
69
culture places great emphasis on the role of the peer group to socialize members in appropriate
collective behavior (e.g., Rubin et al., 2011).
A central issue concerning cultural influences on peer interactions and relationships is the role
of norms and values in defining the “meanings” of social behaviors. Culture may not only affect the
development and prevalence of particular social behaviors, but may also provide guidance for social
judgments and the evaluation of those behaviors that serve as a basis for social acceptance and the
formation of close relationships (Chen, 2012). Specifically, cultural beliefs and values, especially
those concerning socialization goals and expectations, are likely to affect group norms and individual
attitudes in peer interactions. For example, one important socialization goal in Western cultures is
the development of individual autonomy and independence (Greenfield, Suzuki, & Rothstein-Fisch,
2006). In contrast, social connectedness, interdependence, and conformity are valued social
characteristics in most Asian and Latino collectivistic cultures (Greenfield et al., 2006). These
different cultural beliefs and norms provide a frame of reference for the social evaluation of adaptive
and maladaptive behaviors in the peer world. Social evaluations may, in turn, affect how children
interpret and react to each other’s behaviors, and eventually determine whether children are accepted
by peers or the types of relationships children develop with others.
The argument that different cultures draw different meanings from given social behaviors and
interaction patterns has received empirical support in a series of cross-cultural studies by Chen and
colleagues. Consistent with research drawn from Western samples, the frequent display of prosocial
and cooperative behaviors has been found to be positively associated with peer acceptance, and the
frequent display of aggressive or disruptive behavior has been found to be related to peer rejection in
Chinese children (Chen, Rubin, & Li, 1995). In China, however, aggressive children experience
feelings of loneliness and depression; this is not typically the case among aggressive children in North
America (Chen, He, de Oliveira, et al., 2004). This finding may emanate from the strict prohibition
70
of disruptive and aggressive behavior among Chinese children; students who display such deviant
behaviors are often publicly criticized and even humiliated by teachers and peers in Chinese schools.
The role of culture is also evident in peer evaluations of, and responses to, shy-inhibited
behavior. In the Western literature, the display of shy, socially inhibited behavior is thought to derive
from the conflict of approach and avoidance motivations in social situations; thus, socially
withdrawn, restrained behaviors are taken to reflect internal anxiety and fearfulness (see Rubin et al.,
2009). Children who display shy-inhibited behavior are believed to be socially incompetent,
immature, and at risk for maladaptive outcomes (e.g., social anxiety) in cultural contexts within which
individual characteristics of assertiveness, expressiveness, and competitiveness are valued and
encouraged. However, shy-inhibited behavior is considered an indication of accomplishment and
maturity in traditional Chinese culture; shy, wary, and inhibited children are perceived as well-
behaved and understanding (e.g., Chen, 2010). The social and cultural endorsement of their behavior
is likely to help shy-sensitive children obtain social support and develop self-confidence in social
situations. Accordingly, it has been found that, whereas shy-inhibited children in Canada and the
United States experience social and psychological difficulties, shy children in China are accepted by
peers, well-adjusted in the school environment, and less likely than others to report loneliness and
depression (e.g., Chen, Rubin, Li, & Li, 1999; Chen, He, et al., 2004). In a recent observational study,
for example, it was found that, when shy-inhibited children made initiations to their peers, they were
likely to receive positive, supportive responses such as approval and compliance in China, but
negative responses such as rejection and neglect in Canada (Chen, DeSouza, Chen, & Wang, 2006).
Moreover, peers were more likely to voluntarily initiate positive interactions such as sharing and
helping behaviors with shy children in China than in Canada. It should be noted that, as urban
Chinese society has become competitive and Westernized over the past decades due to the large-scale
economic reform, shy children have experienced increased difficulties in their peer relationships
71
(Chen, Cen, Li, & He, 2005). However, recent studies have shown that children’s shy behavior is still
associated with peer approval and acceptance in rural areas – results that are similar to those found in
urban China during the early 1990s (e.g. Chen, Wang, & Cao, 2011).
In summary, cross-cultural studies, especially those conducted in China and other Asian
countries have indicated that some behaviors viewed as maladaptive and deviant in Western cultures
are viewed as adaptive and acceptable therein. These studies have demonstrated that behaviors that
are viewed as acceptable within culture are associated with positive peer relationships such as
acceptance and that behaviors regarded as culturally maladaptive are associated with difficulties in the
peer group such as rejection. Unfortunately, there has been little work, longitudinal or otherwise, in
which researchers have examined the distal predictors (e.g., temperament, family factors) that may
help explain cultural differences in the prediction and long-term outcome of peer relationships. Such
studies would certainly enrich our knowledge of the cultural “meanings” of children’s social
behaviors and relationships.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have reviewed literature concerning children's peer interactions and relationships.
It should be clear that experiences garnered by children in the peer group and with their friends
represent significant development phenomena. Thus, children who are accepted by peers and who
have qualitatively rich friendships appear to fare better, throughout childhood, than children who are
rejected and excluded by the peer group or who are lacking in friendship.
In this chapter, we have attempted to document those factors responsible, in part, for
children’s peer and friendship status. Influences include such intra-individual factors as
temperament, emotion regulation, and social cognitive prowess as well as such inter-individual factors
as family relationships (e.g., attachment), quality of parenting style experienced, and cultural norms
and values.
72
Although we have learned a great deal about the significance of children’s peer interactions,
relationships, and groups, there remain some rather interesting and important questions to address.
For example, little research has focused on individual differences in the extent to which very young
children (toddlers) demonstrate socially competent and incompetent behavior. Indeed, what does
competent social behavior look like at age 1 or 2? We indicated that, by the end of the second year of
life, toddlers are able to engage in complementary and reciprocal interactive behaviors with peers.
But do individual differences in such behaviors predict social competence, peer acceptance, and the
ability to make and keep friends in later years?
We also presented an overview of the significance of children's friendships. We indicated
that children's friendships serve a variety of functions including the provision of emotional and social
support. We noted that children's ideas about friendship become increasingly abstract with age.
Furthermore, children's friendships are posited to play an increasingly important role with age. Yet
little is known about when in childhood friendship can first serve as a promoter or inhibitor of
adaptation or as a buffer against the ill-effects of parental or peer neglect or rejection. This issue of
the functional significance of friendship may prove very helpful in planning intervention programs
for children who demonstrate poorly developed social skills and peer relationships as early as the
preschool years.
We indicated that, from as early as 3 years of age, children's groups can be characterized by
stable and rigid dominance hierarchies. The main function of these hierarchies appears to be to
reduce conflict and aggression among peer group members. In the early years of childhood, the most
dominant members of the peer group are the most popular and most highly imitated in their peer
group. Yet, dominance status in these earliest years of childhood is gained through consistent victory
in interpersonal conflict. The route to dominance status in the middle and later years of childhood is,
as yet, uncharted. It remains to be seen whether the relations between dominance status and peer
73
acceptance remain consistent throughout childhood. Indeed, is it the case that dominance status, as
assessed in early childhood, predicts perceived power and popularity when children move into middle
school? This is a time when many of those perceived as popular are also viewed by peers as
somewhat aggressive, assertive, and as boastful “show-offs.” The early origins of young adolescent
perceived popularity, dominance, and leadership represent areas that require the attention of
researchers.
The topic of children’s peer relationships has caught the attention of the lay public. Not a
day goes by without a major newspaper, magazine article, or film appearing with focus on such
matters as popularity, rejection, friendship, bullying, conflict, meanness, peer pressure, and so on.
With the eyes of the public attending to such matters, it remains up to the researcher to provide a
research-based picture of the roles played by the peer group in childhood and adolescence. It would
be timely, indeed, to offer policy makers and educators the suggestion that “no child left behind”
movements in public schools should incorporate children’s social skills and relationships into the
academic curriculum. After all, if children are rejected or victimized by peers in their schools, they
may find it rather difficult to concentrate on learning to read, write, or solve mathematical problems
(Wentzel, McNamara-Barry, & Caldwell, 2004). If children are lacking friends in school, or if they are
lacking in social skills, what is the likelihood that they would feel comfortable working on group
projects? Children’s peer interactions, relationships, and groups are not only relevant insofar as
psychological and emotional adjustment is concerned; they are clearly important entities as children
attempt to make their ways through their everyday lives.
74
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Figure Legends
Figure 1. The Play Observation Scale coding sheet used by Rubin (2001).
Figure 2. An information processing model of social competence and social problem solving.
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Play Observation Scale Coding Sheet (2001)
Name of Child: _________________ ID________ Cohort___ Age___
Free Play Session _______________
Time Sample
:10 :20 :30 :40 :50 :60
uncodable_______________________________________________________________________
out of room_____________________________________________________________________
transitional_____________________________________________________________________
unoccupied______________________________________________________________________
onlooker_______________________________________________________________________
Solitary Behaviors:
Occupied_________________________________________________________________
Constructive______________________________________________________________
Exploratory_______________________________________________________________
Functional________________________________________________________________
Dramatic_________________________________________________________________
Games___________________________________________________________________
Parallel Behaviors:
Occupied________________________________________________________________
Constructive_____________________________________________________________
Exploratory______________________________________________________________
Functional_______________________________________________________________
Dramatic________________________________________________________________
Games__________________________________________________________________
Group Behaviors:
Occupied_________________________________________________________________
Constructive______________________________________________________________
Exploratory_______________________________________________________________
Functional________________________________________________________________
Dramatic_________________________________________________________________
Games___________________________________________________________________
Peer Conversation__________________________________________________________________
Double Coded Behaviors:
AnxiousBehaviors___________________________________________________________
Hovering__________________________________________________________________
Aggression________________________________________________________________
Rough-and-Tumble__________________________________________________________
Conversation/Interacting With: 1_______ 2_______ 3_______ 4________ 5_________ 6_________
110
